Eric Brown's Planted raises $31.8M as Google backs solar robots

Why it matters

Planted has $31.8 million to expand its robot fleet and pursue a jump from more than 10 MW deployed in 2025 to a company-targeted 100 MW in 2026. Sage's field performance will test whether its integrated solar-construction system can support that increase.

Eric Brown's Oakland-based Planted announced a $31.8 million financing on September 15th to manufacture more solar-construction robots and field its next-generation machine, Sage, later this year.

Piva Capital and RA Capital Management's Planetary Health unit co-led the round. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Gigascale Capital, Google and Khosla Ventures participated. Planted did not assign a stage to the financing in the announcement's body, although the page URL identifies it as a Series B.

The round gives Brown capital to pursue a thesis formed over years of building solar hardware: cheap panels solved only part of the industry's cost problem. Brown, Beckett and Erb previously worked at Cogenra Solar, whose technology was acquired by SunPower in 2015. Brown told Latitude Media that falling module prices shifted the bottleneck to land, permitting, labor and construction.

Brown leads Planted alongside chief operating officer Nate Beckett and co-founder Richard Erb. Beckett was Cogenra's vice president of research and development and has worked on about 30 granted patents spanning solar, automation and sequencing. Erb's prior engineering roles included SpaceX, SunPower and Cogenra. The shared experience helps explain Planted's decision to redesign the array, planning process and installation machinery together instead of attaching a robot to a conventional solar project.

Google brings a data-center connection

Google's participation is the sharper detail in the syndicate. In its announcement about the Meitner Energy Center, Google said the Texas project would pair a data center with new energy generation in Gray and Roberts counties.

Planted says its system combines planning software, terrain-following fixed-tilt arrays, storage integration and software-connected field robots. The company says it can work on slopes of up to 27% without grading and deliver twice the energy per acre of conventional layouts. Those performance figures remain Planted's claims.

Planted says its most recent build was a 28 MW behind-the-meter project serving an unnamed neocloud data center. The project went from the first customer call to power production in 10 months, including less than three months of field construction.

That project gives Brown a stronger sales artifact than another simulation or pilot. It also provides a field result against which prospective customers can assess Planted's claims about deployment speed and land use.

Sage carries the scaling plan

The financing will expand Planted's existing robot fleet and support Sage, which Planted expects to put into the field in late 2026. Planted says Sage will more than double field productivity compared with its current machines.

Planted reported deploying more than 10 MW in 2025 and is targeting 100 MW during 2026. Planted also claims a project pipeline exceeding 20 GW, a robot fleet committed through 2027 and open reservations for 2028. The pipeline, reservation and productivity numbers are self-reported, and a reservation is several steps removed from an operating power plant.

Company releases document a $20 million Series A announced in June 2024 and a $12 million round announced in July 2025. If the latest financing is incremental to both, Planted has disclosed at least $63.8 million across the three rounds. The company has not published a consolidated funding total.

Solar construction has become a robotics contest

Planted is entering a busier field. Terabase Energy said in March that its Terafab V2 automated construction platform had completed field testing and was ready for commercial shipment. AES is deploying Maximo, a robot designed to lift, place and fasten modules. AES reported 100 MW installed at the Bellefield project by March 2026.

Gritt raised a $26 million Series A in July for software that controls off-the-shelf construction equipment and robotic arms. Charge Robotics is pursuing portable field factories that assemble solar components close to installation sites.

Planted's distinction is the decision to control the project from the first site model through the array design and robotic installation. That integrated approach can reduce handoffs, but it leaves Planted responsible for more of the execution when deadlines slip.

Brown is using the financing to turn that integrated design into a repeatable production system. The next test comes in the field, where Sage must convert Planted's manufacturing plans into completed megawatts.