From Kishangarh to Dalal Street: How Ankit Garg took bootstrapped Solarium to public bourses

In 2018, when Ankit Garg started Solarium, he wanted to change the way India sourced energy. With the growing demand for renewable energy, he saw an opportunity to harness the abundant sunlight in the country, recognising the untapped potential of solar power.  

As of December last year, the company is managing ongoing projects worth Rs 185 crore, of which it has booked Rs 45 crore in revenue till September 2024. The company also has new tenders under bidding, totalling Rs 885 crore.

Today, Solarium Green Energy is all set to list on public bourses. The company’s initial public offering (IPO) will open on Thursday, February 6, with anchor bidding starting on February 5. 

The company is offering 54,99,600 equity shares with a face value of Rs 10 each, at an issue price range of Rs 181 - Rs 191 per share. 

At least 26,05,800 equity shares are reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 7,82,400 shares for high-net-worth individuals, at least 18,24,600 shares for retail individual investors, and up to 2,86,800 shares for market makers. 

Solarium intends to use the proceeds from the IPO to meet its working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.

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How it all began

Hailing from Kishangarh, a small city in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district, Garg followed the traditional engineering route. He prepared for entrance examinations in Kota and graduated as a Mining and Machinery Engineer from IIT Dhanbad. After securing a high-paying job at Hyundai’s mining division, Garg’s career took an unexpected turn. 

“Coming from a mining background, we understood that mining is not a sustainable source of energy. At one time, resources will be depleted, and the energy consumption of the world is increasing at a fast pace. Non-renewable energy sources can be substituted only through renewable energy,” Garg tells YourStory. 

Given the geographic constraints of hydroelectric power and the scalability issues of wind energy, he realised the untapped potential of solar power in India. Once he learned how solar energy could replace fossil fuels, there was no stopping him. 

Garg’s internship at Suzlon, a wind and solar energy solutions company, helped him learn the ropes of starting his solar company.

“We have a natural advantage of sunlight. Land-wise, we have an ample amount of land and roof, providing scalability for the product. These factors, when analysed in terms of energy demand, I realised that solar will be the next big market,” Garg says. 

This was the beginning of Solarium in 2018 when the majority of solar panels—the main component of solar plants—were imported from China. At the time, India had not established any import regulations or quality standards for Chinese imports, resulting in an influx of low-quality material. 

Seeing an opportunity in this crisis, Gard decided to capitalise on the situation by establishing a manufacturing plant. He says, “There were very few manufacturers at that time, and we decided to manufacture solar panels, giving our customers good quality solar panels, integrated with end-to-end solutions.”

Garg secured initial funding from close friends and family, and the company started making solar panels with a 25-year warranty, offering prospective customers a reliable alternative to China-made panels. 

Soon, the startup began catering to residential requirements, including rooftop solar installations and EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction). 

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The pivot and growth

Manufacturing solar panels required significantly more capital than Solarium was generating in profits. The company realised that it had to rethink its product offerings to help boost its bottom line. 

“We did a lot of analysis and realised a capital blockage in our manufacturing. If we invest the same capital in our end-to-end EPC services, our profit margins will drastically increase. So, we started focusing more on EPC services in all three sectors (residential, government, businesses),” Garg recalls.

By offering EPC services, Solarium shifted its focus to providing end-to-end solutions for its clients. For instance, a customer wanting to install a 3 MW solar panel can inform Solarium of the location to set up the panels, and it takes care of the rest of the work, including design, engineering, and installation. 

Solarium has partnered with several original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including Navitas Solar and Citizen Solar, to procure solar panels. However, if a customer has a specific demand for an OEM manufacturer, the company buys in bulk and installs the panels. 

Amidst the rising demand for solar energy, the Indian government has subsidised solar panels to encourage demand for renewable energy while implementing strict sanctions on Chinese imports of solar panels. 

The company, along with other players in the ecosystem, has benefitted heavily from the ‘PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana’—launched in February last year—which offered a subsidy of  60% of the solar unit cost for systems up to 2kW capacity and 40% of additional system cost for systems between 2 to 3kW capacity. 

Additionally, the government asked banks across the country to come up with special loan schemes for solar installations to drive demand for solar energy in India.

Today, 11,000 players listed on the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana national portal get subsidies under the scheme. However, only 30 of these companies provide service across India, and Solarium is one of them. 

The scheme, with an outlay of Rs 75,000 crore, is targeting to install rooftop solar solutions across one crore households by FY 2026-27.

Solarium primarily competes with Mumbai-based Solar Square in the residential sector, and the two companies could not be more different. 

Solar Square has gone down the traditional route of startups, having recently raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners. Solarium, on the other hand, has never raised funding and remains bootstrapped. 

“They (Solar Square) are our segment-wise competitors. But, there is no such company that does exactly what we do in the residential, government, and commercial and industrial sectors,” Garg says. 

The company competes with Gensol and Oriana Power Ltd in the B2G (business-to-government) and B2B (business-to-business) sectors.

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Bootstrapped to public listing

Garg followed a traditional business philosophy and believed that businesses should be scaled in a sustainable manner. “My thought process differed from everyone at the time. That's why we never raised funding from any VCs. We took money from close friends and family. And from day one, we decided to keep it profitable. So, we managed our operating expense growth in a very sustainable way.”

This, according to Garg, helped the company during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He adds, “All of our expenses were controlled and planned. We had sufficient capital to get through the time. This helped us ensure that our employees did not suffer. While companies were announcing wage cuts and layoffs, we were paying our employees proper salaries and even gave increments.”

In 2024, Solarium clocked Rs 177 crore in revenue, with a profit after tax of Rs 15.59 crore. 

According to intelligence firm Prescient & Strategic Intelligence, the Indian solar energy market generated $10.4 billion in revenue in 2023 and is expected to touch $24.9 billion by 2030.