A year in review: our journey to an unprecedented growth in 2021

It’s no secret that 2020 was a weird year, but their little sibling, 2021, hasn't gone unnoticed either. This has been yet another atypical year where we have had to put our capabilities to the test and, while many things could have gone wrong, RatedPower flourished.

What’s our secret for thriving when it was not an easy task? Teamwork and hard work. Easier said than done, right? But growing a great team and keeping making a better and better product takes time, patience, and work.

Accompany us though this trip down memory lane. Let’s go!

Key milestones

The team

When we started 2021, we were a team of 25 people, and now we are nearly 50. This increase in our staff indicates that solar energy is at its fullest potential, and we need to ensure that we deliver the best solar software out there. Meet our 2021 newbies (even though it feels like we’ve been together for much longer):

To ensure we grow together as a team made of happy humans, we celebrated our RatedPower Day in the best way we know: surrounded by nature. Finally! After postponing it for months (due to safety reasons), we engaged in an offsite activity to have the best day ever and put our communication and physical skills to the test. We took the necessary safety measures and made the best out of what we had.  Look at us with our matching hoodies!

The RatedPower team having fun and bonding at the RatedPower Day.

Choosing who is going to be part of a team is always delicate, because they are going to have a crucial role when developing the product, speaking with clients, solving problems, or creating strategies. Nevertheless, we believe that growing a team who takes pride in working at RatedPower and makes the office feel like home is our priority. Go team!

“It's only been a couple of months since I joined RatedPower, yet it's been exciting to see the potential of our project. It's stimulating to be surrounded by such a talented and motivated team that strives for excellence and believes in the impact of their work. We're hiring at a really fast pace but are careful to select only the best for every position. Take a look at all our openings here.”

Let’s talk business

We raised $6 million in series A funding.

This investment gave us the opportunity to keep growing and moves us closer to our goals. We plan on using it in driving international growth and expansion in key solar markets, expediting product and feature development and growing a competitive team.

Part of this international expansion is reflected in the many events we’ve attended.

As the travel restrictions started to lift, the world of solar events awakened. We have been lucky to travel to different countries to attend insightful roundtable discussions, events, forums, and fairs, making 13 in total. We are grateful to have met inspiring people along the way, as well as some of our clients, who we had spoken with many times, but hadn’t met face to face yet.

Our team members Angela, Teresa, Nano, Gabriel and Carla at Intersolar Restart Europe 2021 in Munich.

Product

This year, and as the result of a year of developments and in-depth work listening, gathering, and analyzing the feedback provided by our community, we launched RatedPower 3.0.

We believe that RatedPower 3.0 puts us in a leading position to continue accelerating photovoltaics as it’s solidly committed to reduce LCOE while speeding up time to design. This new version solves current market needs by incorporating new functionalities and also sets the foundations for easier and faster product developments.

Apart from the big release RatedPower 3.0 meant, our engineering team is developing key updates every month. We have released up to 45 new major features this 2021. Some of our favorites (and more requested ones) include earthworks, batch design, and East-West structures.

“2021 has been the year of consolidation of our vision for RatedPower. We released version 3.0 of our software and grew the team accordingly, laying solid foundations for the needs we are going to have in 2022.”

Ogami Station

We launched our very own podcast: Ogami Station. The spanish-speaking audience lacked a renewables themed podcast, so we gave birth to Ogami Station: a podcast that brings you closer to the renewable energy sector. During the period of nine months, we’ve invited nine incredible specialists in different energy sectors to share their knowledge with all of us. Fast-forward to December, and we’re already at our second season!

We want to thank our hosts, Gabi and Laura, and our amazing guests: Félix Pérez, Carla Coghen, Patricio Peral, Raquel Igualá, Marta Palencia-Lefler, Manuel Sáchez-Merenciano, Nano Martín, Natalia Opie, Marcial González.

From left to right: our co-host Laura, guests Nano and Natalia and our cohost Gabi.

So this was it, 2021 is nearly over. It has been a challenging year of learning and adapting, of a growing renewable industry and of great news and initiatives.

Many more new team members and software updates are yet to come. Let’s get ready for 2022 and toast for a bright New Year!

The future is ours - and yours - to take and mold as we wish. It’s in our hands to direct it towards a greener world.

Andrea, Juan & Miguel Ángel.