When Nithish Sairam took up a job at a small startup in the American solar industry, he realised two things – the US solar business was growing rapidly and there was a dearth of design and engineering talent in the renewable energy space. “Switching from SolarCity (a solar power company, later acquired by Tesla), I understood that only a handful of large companies had vertically integrated teams. The smaller companies, contractors, and construction firms, which form a major chunk of developing renewable energy projects, struggled with subject matter expertise to execute projects,” he said.
Having spotted the opportunity, he founded Illumine Industries in 2015 along with Sudarshan, his classmate from Arizona State University (ASU). Sudarshan has experience in solar engineering and technical consulting on major projects. Initially, the startup provided electrical and structural engineering expertise in solar projects for smaller contractors. Now, it offers services in various stages of the renewable energy project development cycle. These include design, engineering, navigating regulatory environments, getting permits and consultative advisory for steps before and after design and engineering.

Apart from solar plants, they provide services to battery energy storage systems (BESS) and electric vehicle charging projects. It is getting into natural gas power plants and plans to take up hydrogen plant projects as well. Today, it has a multi-year order book with a conservative value of 90 crore to be executed in the current fiscal. The startup handles large power projects, building microgrids and 50 megawatt-hours (MWh) to 100 MWh battery projects for utility companies.
Starting with a skeletal five-member team, Sairam claims that theirs is one of the largest firms in the niche development consulting space for renewables in the US. Bootstrapped for almost a decade, Illumine raised $2 million in funding from Anicut Capital in 2024. “In 2022 we had acquisition offers from one of the largest independent power producers. The founders flew into India, met with us, and extended offers. We sought advice and finally turned it down. They came back with a higher offer and we still turned it down. I think that caught the eyes of investors here locally.”
While the Trump administration is not enthusiastic about promoting green power and might withhold federal subsidies, the company remains unperturbed. “Even if that is pulled out, around 20 US states do not need those subsidies as increasing strain in the grid and rising cost of power makes solar an attractive option. Switching to solar makes sense, but trade tariffs could affect equipment costs, pushing up the prices. However, the impact is short-term,” Sairam said.
The company hopes to enter into the Australian and European markets, and its infrastructure arm is taking up projects in Canada and Middle East markets. In the long-term, Illumine aims to emerge as a global engineering firm from India, aiming to cross $100 million in revenue and $250 million in valuation in the next five to six years. “We target a revenue of about $100 million (800cr), and given the growth of the industry, it is a realistic goal,” Nithish Sairam said.