Optivolt, a power electronics company building an intelligence layer for solar, has raised a $32 million Series A led by VXI Capital, a hard tech fund founded by the former chief technology officer of the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit.
RA Capital, Valo Ventures, and Atlas Innovate also participated, bringing the company’s total funding to $42 million. Solar industry veterans, including Enphase founding CEO Paul Nahi, former SunPower CEO Tom Werner, and former New York energy official Richard Kauffman, also backed the round.
The company’s Power Balancer places electronics inside the panel itself and moves energy between groups of cells as conditions change. In a conventional panel, a single underperforming cell caused by shade, dirt, or uneven aging can limit the output of its entire cell group.
The Power Balancer addresses that mismatch, replaces the bypass diodes, and builds rapid shutdown and monitoring into the panel, which can remove the need for separate optimizers or microinverters. The company reports 99.4% conversion efficiency under typical conditions and holds 19 issued patents.
“At Enphase, we transformed rooftop solar by managing power at the output of each panel. Today, rising panel power, the widespread adoption of storage, and the urgent need to reduce costs demand a new approach,” said Paul Nahi, the founding CEO of Enphase and Optivolt investor, in a statement.
More than 20,000 panels with the technology have shipped. Optivolt plans to use the funding to expand manufacturing and bring the product to systems ranging from homes to utility-scale projects.
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