Entrepreneurship: SunFarmer, solar energy for the developing world

Building SunFarmer has been the highlight of my professional career.

Avishek Malla and I incorporated SunFarmer Nepal in early 2014, and we participated in Y Combinator in the summer of 2015. We have installed over 2,000 solar energy projects across Nepal with a focus on commercial customers such as hospitals, farms, and businesses.

Our team designs, installs, and arranges financing for solar energy projects. We have been responsible for a number of technical and financial innovations in the Nepal market - we installed some of the first grid-tied solar systems in Nepal, we created new product offerings such as an affordable solar-powered irrigation pump, and we did the first electricity-as-a-service solar deals. We have also installed some of the largest solar energy projects in the country.

Our team has been extremely resilient - when the solar market nearly collapsed in 2017, we built on our expertise serving farmers and opened our own farming operation, which produced over 20 metric tons of produce in our first year. When the national government changed and banned foreign-funded companies from participating in farming operations, we were lucky that the solar market had returned; we sold the farm operation and focused 100% of our efforts on our rapidly-growing grid-tied solar and off-grid solar-powered irrigation and minigrid business.

Our dedicated local team continues to lead the business today, which achieved over $1.1M in revenues in 2021 despite challenges due to COVID. Read more about our projects and our impact on our website. In addition, we received coverage in media outlets including the Guardian, Financial Times, National Geographic, and Next Billion.

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