Leonardo DiCaprio and Hollywood, a famous combination that on this occasion has nothing to do with the seventh art, but with the more political side of the American actor. A convinced environmental activist, in 1998 he created the foundation that bears his name to promote projects that protect diversity or the search for solutions against climate change. Here he came across SolarMente, a company founded four years ago by Wouter Draijer and Victor Gardrinier, which promotes a subscription model for photovoltaic self-consumption that includes installation, maintenance and insurance, so that users and customers can produce, store and market their own energy without the need for an initial outlay.
The story of SolarMente began in 2020 when Draijer arrived in Spain from the Netherlands to study a master’s degree and noticed the shortage of panels in a place where the sun is the protagonist of many of his days. “In my country one in three houses has solar panels, in Spain one in every hundred,” he says. A context that led him to explore the market and set up a company that would manage this sector.
He joined forces with Gardrinier and, with their savings, they launched SolarMente with the aim of making it easy for those who want to take the step in converting to sustainable energy, because, as he explains, in Spain this energy change is slow and complex for clients, with an average of four to six months of procedures and more than 30 interactions (emails, calls or messages) between users and the companies that offer the service.
With 50 employees currently and three million euros in turnover last year, SolarMente offers, in addition to its subscription system, batteries, charging points for electric vehicles or a heat pump system. It recently launched a virtual battery service so users can store excess solar energy for later use or to share with other homes or businesses.
They carry out about 120 installations each month, especially in Catalonia, Valencia and Madrid, and their forecasts point to more than 10,000 in the next two and a half years, in addition to opening offices in Madrid and Malaga that will be added to those in Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante. They also plan the international launch of SolarMente for 2025 with Portugal and France as the main European destinations and a special plan for the end of next year in Latin America. “First we have to finish the expansion in Spain and then reach other countries,” says Draijer.
A push from the US
The ambition of this company led them to look for a powerful investor who cared about improving the environment, but they did not want to knock on just any door. “We had been thinking about names like DiCaprio or Barack Obama and, being part of the North American accelerator Y Combinator, we knew that one of the founders had a relationship with this North American actor. We contacted him and in October of last year we had our first interview in Hollywood. In just four months we had already reached an agreement,” explains Draijer. He says that the meeting was very special, with a fluid conversation, and that it did not cost them anything to join the project.
In March of this year they closed the investment (they do not give the figure involved in this collaboration), which is the first in Spain directly from the protagonist of Titanic. It was finalized in a one-year agreement that has finally been extended to three. “He has become an investor and brand ambassador. We talk to him every six months to tell him about the growth of the company,” says Draijer.
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