Gigawatt Inc., the parent company of DIY-focused brands including GoGreenSolar, Unbound Solar and the AltE Store, announced the launch of a public investment round this week to accelerate its expansion in the residential solar market.
The company has listed its offering on the crowdfunding platform StartEngine, seeking to raise capital to develop proprietary hardware and software aimed at the “do-it-yourself” and homebuilder sectors.
The offering, conducted under Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF), presents a pre-money valuation of $40 million for the company. Gigawatt is making non-voting Class B Common Stock available at $2 per share. The campaign has set a minimum investment threshold of $500 (250 shares) for individual investors, with the total offering capped at a maximum raise of $1.235 million.
Targeting the Post-ITC Market
Gigawatt CEO Deep Patel views the current market landscape — characterized by rising utility rates and the gradual phase-down of federal tax credits — as a critical inflection point. As turnkey solar installers face mounting soft costs and struggle with profitability, Patel argues that a leaner, direct-to-consumer model is poised for growth.
“We believe the model we have, which is ‘do it your own way’ solar, is going to be more interesting to people as the tax credit goes away,” Patel told pv magazine USA. “Customers [are] really getting involved in their systems… cutting out all the middlemen, all the sales agents, the multiple layers of markups… that are in between the factory floor and the customer.”
Reinventing “Real Goods”
A central pillar of Gigawatt’s roadmap is the revival of the Real Goods brand. Acquired by Gigawatt when it purchased then-owner The AltE Store in 2024, Real Goods was the company that sold the first retail solar panel in the U.S. in 1978.
Gigawatt plans to leverage this heritage to launch a line of private-label hybrid inverters, batteries and solar modules, offering these products in affordable, integrated solar-plus-storage kits alongside permitting and interconnection help, to deliver on the mission of the original Real Goods “power to the people” movement.
Patel described the strategy as creating a “Kirkland brand” for solar—high-quality, white-labeled equipment sourced from global OEMs but modified to Gigawatt’s specifications based on 19 years of customer feedback.
Consolidation and software innovation
Currently, Gigawatt operates multiple storefronts, including GoGreenSolar, AltE Store and Unbound Solar, which share a common back-end infrastructure to support customers as they follow the process of developing their solar projects.
As part of its growth strategy, the company plans to eventually consolidate these brands under the Unbound Solar umbrella to streamline its market presence.
Gigawatt’s current customer base largely comprises homeowners who either perform the physical installation themselves or act as project managers, coordinating the logistics of their installation but hiring labor for the actual construction. Beyond homeowners, the company also serves small professional installers and home builders seeking compliance solutions for state mandates.
The company says capital from its crowdfunding efforts will also support the development of the Real Goods Hub, a software platform designed to simplify system management for those customers.
Patel said one thing he’s learned from customers over his company’s 19-year history is that overly technical interfaces often confuse homeowners.
“We want to create our own software that’s user first, and in plain language, so anyone can understand what these things mean,” Patel said. He outlined a vision for an AI-integrated interface that allows users to control their energy assets through natural conversation. “They should just be able to talk to their system in simple language and have it do what they want it to.”
Investment Availability
The investment round is currently open to the public. Investors are subject to investment limits based on their income and net worth under Reg CF rules. More details can be found on Gigawatt’s StartEngine page.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.