Glowship confident of 500% growth post funding exercise

Startup Showcase

Srinivas Potukuchi, an undergraduate in chemical engineering from IIT-M and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, worked in different companies to gain insights into solar energy before starting Glowship in 2015.

“Nobody from my family is into business, but I was always interested to own a company. This startup is the country’s largest marketplace for energy and environment-related products, solutions and services,” said Potukuchi, who worked previously in SunEdison, where he led sales. Previously, Srinivas worked for Kotak Urja, a solar company backed by Kleiner Perkins/Sherpalo ventures, where he built a retail business for off-grid solar products.

“The fundamental motivation behind starting Glowship was to make things simple. When we take solar or energy-related products, the entire category is too complex. My idea is to make consumers understand before buying products,” he said.

The startup addresses the purchase needs of a residential home owner in areas related to heating, pumping, power back-up, home automation, energy generation and energy management. “We want to provide everything under one roof to new home owners. We have developed our own technology that simplifies the purchase experience with standardised information and tools to help with product selection, apart from providing a full-service offering that includes delivery and installation service to the customer,” he said. The startup is planning to provide post purchase support through an asset management platform that will be launched soon.

When asked about sellers, Potukuchi said, “We partner with manufacturers and authorised resellers. We have around 150 sellers selling on our platform and we are present in 10 states. So far, about 600 customers ordered from us and some of our customers include small offices. The average order size is Rs 27,000,” he said, adding that they are profitable on every order.

The startup has recently launched a new offering targeting residential owners and small businesses to install solar on their rooftops. “The new offering will recommend the optimum solar capacity and provide an instant price estimate for the entire system while offering customers the flexibility to evaluate and choose from multiple solutions ranging from either consuming solar power directly (without storage) or for the purpose of providing back-up power during a power outage,” the founder and CEO said, adding, once the customer confirms his/her interest, Glowship arranges for the installation of the solar system through partner network of system integrators across the country.

Talking about funding, he said, “Talks are on and once we conclude our next round of funding, we are confident of 500% growth.”