Solar Company Enpal Becomes Germany’s First “Green Unicorn”

A whopping EUR 250 million financing round has taken Berlin-based solar energy provider Enpal over the EUR one billion mark in value. That massive haul came on top of another EUR 100 million round this spring.

Enpal rents out photovoltaic systems and batteries for the period of twenty years to private customers for roughly the same price as their electricity bills. Customers then have the option to purchase the units. Investors, including film star Leonardo DiCaprio, are impressed and have been pumped venture capital into the five-year-old company.

“The huge interest from investors really surprised us,” Enpal founder Mario Kohle told business newspaper Handelsblatt. “Now the renewables sector has a chance to show that it can achieve greater valuation and get things done.”

Handelsblatt says that around a dozen German companies have reached unicorn status this year, but Enpal is the first one from the green sector.