Lumen Energy
Lumen Energy is a commercial solar transaction platform that helps commercial real estate owners evaluate, finance, and deploy rooftop solar through competitive bidding with vetted developers. The Lux Engine provides portfolio-scale underwriting for institutional property owners and industrial operators.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2019
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Lumen Energy does
Lumen Energy is a commercial solar transaction platform that operates as a modern solar broker for commercial real estate (CRE) owners. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in San Francisco, the company helps building owners generate new income from their rooftops by facilitating solar leases and power purchase agreements (PPAs) with vetted developers through a competitive bidding marketplace. Primary customers are institutional real estate investment managers, REITs, and industrial property owners with portfolios of warehouses, distribution centers, manufacturing facilities, multi-family properties, and office buildings. Named enterprise customers include Nuveen Real Estate (1,400+ properties analyzed), Albany International, Hines, and Tishman Speyer.
The company's core technology is the Lux Engine, a proprietary underwriting platform that performs portfolio-scale financial modeling, technical feasibility assessment, and market comparable analysis for solar projects. The Lux Engine processes uploaded utility bills and energy data in any format to create hourly and seasonal electricity usage profiles, including parsing exotic third-party tariffs. The Lumen Platform wraps around this engine with a three-step workflow (Evaluate, Transact, Execute) that includes a competitive developer marketplace with 150+ vetted EPC partners enabling transparent price discovery. Adjacent products include AutoPPA™ for automated power purchase agreement evaluation and the Lumen Solar Index, a quarterly pricing benchmark for commercial rooftop solar leasing launched in 2026.
Lumen operates a transaction-based, success-fee revenue model where the company is paid only when a property owner closes a deal, with revenue streams comprising brokerage/transaction fees from completed deals and marketplace commissions from developers and EPCs accessing vetted project opportunities. The go-to-market combines enterprise field sales (with state-specific teams in IL, MD, NJ, MA, and DC) with product-led growth through free online evaluations and a partner referral network of 150+ EPCs. Leadership includes CEO Peter Light and co-founder Dave Coen. The company has raised approximately $20M+ across multiple rounds including an $11M Series A in 2023 led by Lowercarbon Capital.
Lumen Energy firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Lumen Energy
- Legal name
- Lumen Energy, Inc.
- Website
- https://getlumen.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2019
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Lumen Energy is a commercial solar transaction platform that helps commercial real estate owners evaluate, finance, and deploy rooftop solar through competitive bidding with vetted developers. The Lux Engine provides portfolio-scale underwriting for institutional property owners and industrial operators.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Lumen Energy industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Commercial Solar Brokerage Software
- NAICS
- Solar Electric Power Generation (221114), Real Estate Property Managers (53131)
- SIC
- Real Estate Agents & Managers (For Others) (6531), Electric Services (4911)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Asset Management & Owner’s Engineering (Lifecycle Strategy, Budgeting, Technical Due Diligence) (EUAMAGAJ)
Keywords
Where Lumen Energy is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Lumen Energy business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Brokerage/Transaction Fee: Lumen Energy acts as a modern solar broker for commercial real estate owners. The company only gets paid when the customer gets an outcome that works for their portfolio. This success-fee model aligns Lumen's success with the property owner's returns.
- Developer Marketplace Fees: Lumen operates a two-sided marketplace connecting property owners with vetted solar developers and EPCs. The company facilitates competitive bidding processes and likely earns fees from developers for access to vetted project opportunities.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | Success-based brokerage model |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels5 records
Lumen Energy product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Lumen Energy operates a software platform that helps commercial real estate owners evaluate, transact, and execute on-site clean energy projects (solar, batteries, EV chargers). Through the proprietary Lux Engine underwriting technology and a nationwide marketplace of vetted solar developers and EPCs, Lumen enables property owners to generate rental income from rooftop leases, run competitive bids, and close solar transactions with no upfront capital.
Product overview
Lumen Energy operates as a modern solar broker for commercial real estate owners, offering a platform-based architecture centered on the Lumen Platform and its proprietary Lux Engine technology. The platform connects property owners with a marketplace of vetted solar developers through an evaluate-transact-execute workflow. Core service offerings include Community Solar/Rooftop Leasing for generating income from solar installations, the AutoPPA™ automated PPA software, and EV Charger Evaluation services. The Lux Engine provides investment-grade analysis and financial modeling capabilities that power property prioritization, feasibility assessment, and automated configuration generation across the platform.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- AutoPPA (AutoPPA™): Automated software for power purchase agreements that assists facility managers and property owners in deploying renewable energy solutions
- Lux Engine
- Lumen Solar Index
Products and services
- Lumen Platform Commercial solar transaction platform for commercial real estate owners that guides users through evaluate, transact, and execute phases to uncover financial and environmental value of clean energy systems including solar, batteries, and EV chargers.
- AutoPPA Automated software for power purchase agreements that assists facility managers and commercial building owners in evaluating costs and benefits of on-site clean energy installations requiring no upfront capital.
- Community Solar / Rooftop Leasing Service enabling commercial property owners to lease rooftop space to solar developers for guaranteed rental income over 20-25 years with zero CapEx, generating new NOI from clean energy installations.
- EV Charger Evaluation Evaluation service for commercial properties to assess feasibility and economics of EV charging infrastructure deployment alongside solar installations.
- Lumen Solar Index Quarterly pricing benchmark for commercial rooftop solar leasing that provides market transparency on solar lease pricing across geographies.
Quantifiable outcome
- $1.7M annual income generated across 13 industrial properties ($33M over 20 years)
- +4 more outcomes
Companies that use Lumen Energy
Customer profileNamed customers5 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Lumen Energy technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability4 records
Feature5 records
Lumen Energy partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- WatershedcorePartnership to help companies implement onsite solar projects across large, distributed commercial building portfolios. Combines Watershed's energy and carbon data platform with Lumen's investment-grade solar analysis and competitive bidding process. Aims to accelerate clean power adoption by streamlining evaluation cycles, securing better contractual terms, and providing multi-year fixed pricing through PPAs or leases.
- Huawei GhanacoreMoU signed to launch a nationwide solar energy project in Ghana powering 4,000 Catholic institutions and reducing carbon emissions. Huawei supplies solar solutions and provides training and support, while Lumen leads project implementation.
- ULI GreenprintminorLumen Energy joined ULI Greenprint's Innovation Partner Program to enable commercial real estate leaders to profitably cut carbon. ULI (Urban Land Institute) Greenprint is a global nonprofit working to reduce carbon emissions across the built environment.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Lumen Energy competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Arcadia: Arcadia operates a clean energy data platform that connects utilities, DERs, and enterprise buyers (including commercial real estate portfolios). Directly comparable as a technology-enabled clean energy marketplace/platform targeting CRE and enterprise decarbonization workflows.
- Watershed: Watershed is an enterprise climate platform that combines carbon accounting with clean energy procurement; it is also a strategic Lumen partner. Comparable as a software platform helping enterprises deploy on-site clean energy at portfolio scale — overlapping customer base and use cases.
- Carbon Lighthouse: Carbon Lighthouse delivers on-site decarbonization projects (solar, efficiency, electrification) for commercial real estate owners with a data-driven implementation model. Comparable as a CRE-focused clean energy implementation platform with overlapping target customers and outcomes.
- Aurora Solar: Aurora Solar provides solar sales and design software used by developers and EPCs to scope, design, and price distributed solar projects. Comparable as a software platform sitting between property owners and solar developers, with overlapping workflow in solar feasibility and proposal generation.
- EnergySage: EnergySage operates an online solar marketplace where property owners receive competitive bids from installers. Comparable as a multi-sided marketplace that uses price discovery to match owners with solar providers, though historically more residential-weighted.
Emerging players
- Pick My Solar: Pick My Solar operates a solar marketplace connecting homeowners and small businesses with installers via competitive bidding. Comparable as a marketplace model focused on solar price discovery, though weighted toward smaller-scale projects.
- kWh Analytics: kWh Analytics provides risk analytics and data infrastructure for solar assets, including for institutional investors and developers. Comparable in the use of proprietary data and analytics to underwrite distributed solar exposure for institutional capital.
- REsurety: REsurety provides analytics and risk management for renewable energy assets, including for project finance and corporate clean energy procurement. Comparable in the use of data and analytics to structure clean energy transactions for institutional buyers.
- Solar Mosaic: Solar Mosaic is a solar financing marketplace originally focused on community solar, serving property owners and project developers with structured financing and PPA products. Comparable in business model and community solar orientation, though currently operates at smaller scale.
Broad incumbents
- Generate Capital: Generate Capital is a large-scale specialty finance company that builds, owns, and operates distributed energy and resource infrastructure, frequently working with CRE owners on PPA and lease structures. Comparable as a counterparty / competitor on the developer side of Lumen's marketplace.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Lumen Energy social profiles
Digital presenceLumen Energy financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Lumen Energy leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles10 records
Lumen Energy funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds5 records
Investors6 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Lumen Energy M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Lumen Energy
What does Lumen Energy do?
Lumen Energy operates a software platform that helps commercial real estate owners evaluate, transact, and execute on-site clean energy projects (solar, batteries, EV chargers). Through the proprietary Lux Engine underwriting technology and a nationwide marketplace of vetted solar developers and EPCs, Lumen enables property owners to generate rental income from rooftop leases, run competitive bids, and close solar transactions with no upfront capital.
Is Lumen Energy a public or private company?
Lumen Energy is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Lumen Energy founded?
Lumen Energy was founded in 2019. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Lumen Energy based?
Lumen Energy is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Lumen Energy make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Brokerage/Transaction Fee is the primary driver. The others are developer Marketplace Fees.
Who are Lumen Energy's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Arcadia, Watershed, Carbon Lighthouse, Aurora Solar and EnergySage. Emerging players are Pick My Solar, kWh Analytics, REsurety and Solar Mosaic. Generate Capital is listed as a broad incumbent.
Does Lumen Energy have an API?
No public API is recorded for Lumen Energy.
What industry is Lumen Energy in?
Lumen Energy's product category is Commercial Solar Brokerage Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EUAMAGAJ, Asset Management & Owner’s Engineering (Lifecycle Strategy, Budgeting, Technical Due Diligence). Its NAICS code is 221114 and its SIC code is 6531.