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For a country with some very sunny regions, Mexico has strikingly little solar power<\/a>. At just over 10 gigawatts of solar capacity, it has one-eighth that of Germany, a country with less sunlight and 40% fewer people.<\/p>\n German government incentives have helped, but there\u2019s more to the story than that. In Mexico, the solar market is still nascent, which means customers are not very familiar with the technology and the market remains highly fragmented.<\/p>\n For two entrepreneurs, that spelled opportunity.<\/p>\n A couple years ago, Edoardo Dellepaine and Raffaele Sertorio were looking to start a new business. The Italians had been on something of a world tour, landing in Colombia shortly after the government and FARC signed a peace agreement. There, they founded a ghost kitchen startup, Cocinas Ocultas and quickly sold<\/a> it to Travis Kalanick\u2019s CloudKitchens<\/a>. Then they went to South Korea to revamp CloudKitchens\u2019 operations there before moving to Mexico for another CloudKitchens project.<\/p>\n In March 2022, the two left CloudKitchens for a brief reprieve before launching into something new. Dellepaine had always wanted to get into climate tech, and he and Sertorio eventually zeroed in on solar where they lived, in Mexico.<\/p>\n The intense Mexican sun certainly helped their thinking, but so too did the country\u2019s high electricity rates. \u201cTariffs here, for at least a portion of the population, it\u2019s higher than California,\u201d said Sertorio. To top it off, permitting was easier and installation costs were lower. Solar power seemed like a no-brainer.<\/p>\n And yet solar adoption was lagging, especially among residential and small commercial customers.<\/p>\n Dellepaine and Sertorio discovered that small installers handled a large fraction of the jobs, creating uneven results. Some had little experience with solar, and some of their installs were barely functional. Others were skilled, but between quoting and installs, they were overwhelmed with work. They would provide a quote and then do little to follow up. In other words, there was plenty of room for improvement.<\/p>\n So, the two founded Niko<\/a>, a solar installation company based in Mexico City. The startup has been operating in stealth until now, and TechCrunch has exclusively learned that the company has raised a $3.3 million seed round at a $16 million post-money valuation. Picus Capital and 468 Capital led the round with participation by a number of other VCs and angel investors.<\/p>\n Niko is initially focusing on sales and installation of solar panels for residential and small commercial companies. Their pitch and process attempts to assuage customer concerns: People don\u2019t have to put any money down, they\u2019re guaranteed savings on their utility bills, and if they\u2019re not happy with the panels, Niko will remove them for free.<\/p>\n