Solar Investing Made Simple With Wunder Capital
Originally published on Solar Love.
Wunder Capital of Boulder, Colorado is making it easy for accredited 
investors to participate in the booming solar energy business. Up until now, getting in on this lucrative industry has been reserved for companies like Google, Goldman Sachs and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. But now Wunder Capital is opening this burgeoning market to individuals who are “accredited investors” as defined by the Securities And Exchange Commission.
An accredited investor is defined by the SEC as someone who has over $1 million in assets (not including primary residence) OR someone who earns over $200,000 per year (or $300,00 with a spouse) and expects to earn the same year in following years.
With banks now paying less than 1% a year on deposits, if you have cash sitting in the bank and meet SEC requirements, you can put yourself in a position to make about 6% a year on your investment. Here’s an infographic that shows you how this works.
Wunder Capital sources projects from its national network of solar installer partners and rigorously assesses each deal using its proprietary software to examine underlying property fundamentals, such as vacancy rate, property value, and shade coverage instead of credit scores. Selected projects are pooled into one of its online funds into which any accredited investor can commit as little as $1,000, benefiting from an instant, diversified solar portfolio.
Bryan Birsic, co-founder & CEO of Wunder, says, “We wanted to go after one of humanity’s greatest problems and discovered this massive opportunity in the solar market. By simplifying the financing and investing process we can create a better marketplace for solar installers and investors, enabling solar as an energy source to scale more effectively.”
Investors are expected to earn 6% in annual returns, which is greater than most green bonds or other income investments. Investors also avoid the volatility of the stock market and the inevitable “corrections” that occur from time to time. For more information, contact Joanna Sand. Her e-mail is Joanna@wundercapital.com or call her at (646) 684-2833.
Reprinted with permission.
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Seems like this article should’ve mentioned the existence of Solar Mosaic, which has been crowdfunding solar for two years now. Of course Mosaic stopped allowing investments from people outside California which was a bummer. Good to see another company is willing to step in.
Thanks! We’re glad we’re able to step in and offer another way to invest in solar.
Actually I thought is was people in California that got nearly shutout. I think they decided rechecking accredidation (I think it was supposed to be every quarter) was too much trouble. I’m from California, and the only available investments the past few months have been some packaged residential deals in Connecticut.
The reason for the “accredited investor” only for these funds is that the cost of getting the fund accredited for other investors in each state is high. Maybe “Wunder” can comment. But I thought I heard ~$???k/state, and then some lesser yearly amount per state. I change to ?, because I don’t trust what I heard or remember.
Great question, Matt. We do plan to offer investment opportunities to all investors, not just accredited. You’re right that opening an investment platform to any investor does bring about additional SEC regulation and requirements, such as filing costs etc. but we’re preparing to meet these needs to increase accessibility across all states.
Great to hear!
So, how will this differ from Solar Mosaic?
For a while Solar Mosaic also allowed smaller investors from a couple of states, they paid the fees and did the paper work to get accepted by those states.
Hi there –
Another difference to note is that we (Wunder) offer immediate diversification across a solar portfolio, whereas Mosaic offered direct investment into specific projects. To build a diversified portfolio at Mosaic, you had to select and execute dozens of individual projects yourself. At Wunder, we do that for you.
Yes. I only put smallish chunks in each Mosaic project. Now that projects have become as scarce as hen’s teeth that simply means you can’t invest much.
Our portfolio approach means you can invest as much as you like (minimum $1,000), so come and swing by and take a look. Just email hello@wundercapital.com if you have any questions!
very cool, but kinda annoyed about the accredited thing, as it seems I’m on the outside looking in.
Benjamin Graham – also known as The Dean of Wall Street and The Father of Value Investing – was a scholar and financial analyst who mentored legendary investors such as Warren Buffett, William J. Ruane, Irving Kahn and Walter J. Schloss.
Buffett describes Graham’s book – The Intelligent Investor – as “by far the best book about investing ever written” (in its preface).
Graham’s first recommended strategy – for casual investors – was to invest in Index stocks.
For more serious investors, Graham recommended three different categories of stocks – Defensive, Enterprising and NCAV – and 17 qualitative and quantitative rules for identifying them.
For advanced investors, Graham described various “special situations”.
The first requires almost no analysis, and is easily accomplished today with a good S&P500 Index fund.
The last requires more than the average level of ability and experience. Such stocks are also not amenable to impartial algorithmic analysis, and require a case-specific approach.
But Defensive, Enterprising and NCAV stocks can be reliably detected by today’s data-mining software, and offer a great avenue for accurate automated analysis and profitable investment.
Warren Buffett once wrote a detailed article explaining how Graham’s record of creating exceptional investors (such as Buffett himself) is unquestionable, and how Graham’s principles are everlasting. The article is called “The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville”.
Thank you.