Pranesh Chaudhary, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, is the Founder and CEO of ZunRoof Tech Private Limited. It is an entrepreneurial initiative pioneered to solve the energy issues of India by using unutilized rooftops for solar and sense and control of every electrical appliance in one’s house through in-house developed IoT-enabled hardware and accompanying apps. ZunRoof has been uniquely positioned to represent a new standard for the automation and the power sector that ensures electricity is reached and is utilized even in the remotest areas of the country.
Pranesh, having spent his childhood in small towns and villages of Bihar, personally experienced the effects of huge electricity outages in daily life. And in areas where electricity is available throughout the day, electricity expense is a costly affair for households. To address this problem, Pranesh founded Zunroof on 13th June 2016 with his long-time friend from IIT days, Sushant Sachan.
While building a marketplace for solar rooftop installations, Pranesh realized a few critical aspects. The residential customer segment of the solar industry was dominated by unorganized players, leading to improper installations and poor after-sales service. Owing to these challenges, there was a strong need for a one-stop solution that offered design, delivery, and diagnostics of solar panel installations. ZunRoof, today, has already become the number one choice for residential and SME clients in India for solar.
So far, the company has touched over 35000 homes, planted over 5,000 rooftop solar systems in 75+ cities in India, and has installed 20 MW+ of rooftop solar & 50,000+ IoT devices. As a key differentiating factor, the platform uses augmented reality and artificial intelligence in a mobile app to design, deliver and diagnose rooftop installation and maintenance for homeowners with the target to lay solar roofs on at least one million homes in the next 5 years.
Bootstrapped for the first two years, the organization managed to create a trustworthy and scalable distribution network. However, the residential rooftop solar solutions were best utilized in urban areas where electricity was available throughout the day. A personal desire to find a sustainable solution for rural areas led Pranesh to expand the offerings of the company and create a range of solar products, including several affordable solar combos. This initiative would ensure complete independence from the grid especially for the daily wagers, landless laborers and small shop owners residing in villages and small towns of India.
The next quest was to fulfill the increasing need-based demand for smart appliances that caters to the affordable solutions in the smart homes segment. Leveraging its technological strengths, the organization created an in-house developed IOT enabled hardware range that includes 10 smart devices under 4 categories of lighting, security, control, and purifiers – all of them working with one single app over wifi and not needing any wiring change at all in homes (a major limiting factor in usual home automation firms).
The 3 segments- ZunRoof (Residential rooftop segment catering to urban areas), ZunSolar (Offering a wide range of solar products specifically designed for rural area needs) and zunpulse (a complete smart home solution to utilize electricity in an efficient manner) – now forms an ecosystem for each individual – from every walk of life – to efficiently receive and use electricity in daily life.