SunPower, a solar technology, services, and installation company, closed a strategic acquisition of Sunder Energy, a residential solar sales company.
SunPower, formerly Complete Solaria, went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year, during which Complete Solar acquired its assets, rebranded under the SunPower name, and retained the SPWR stock ticker. In the two quarters following the asset acquisition, the company undertook significant restructuring, reducing its workforce from 2,901 employees to just 900 to operate more efficiently and reduce overhead.
SunPower CEO T.J. Rodgers stated that the acquisition of Sunder Energy is expected to boost SunPower’s revenue back to its pre-ITC levels. This revenue increase will come from Sunder’s 893-person 1099 (dealer) sales force, overseen by 20 Sunder W-2 (permanent) employees who have already transitioned to SunPower. The company projects that this low-overhead revenue model will result in a substantial operating income in Q4 2025.
Rodgers commented, “I’ve been asked why it took six months to create the Sunder deal but less than a week to close it. That’s because this deal is about retaining an independent 1099 salesforce and learning from the experience. To that end, we have carefully vetted every aspect of retaining a world-class sales team, from their salary and stock compensation through the HR and IT systems that connect them to us. We even did a one-quarter experiment to run 64 Sunder deals through the SunPower systems and study the reactions of their salesforce. Based on that trial run, the acquisition at the sales level is most simply described as doubling the SunPower salesforce from 841 to 1,734 representatives, while adopting the Sunder sales software and methods on both sides.”
According to Mercom’s 1H and Q2 2025 Solar Funding and M&A report, there were 50 solar M&A transactions in the first half of 2025, compared to 40 during the same period in 2024.
In September, Solaris Assets, controlled by climate-focused investment management firm GoodFinch Management, announced the acquisition of substantially all the assets and business operations of residential solar company Sunnova Energy International. Through the Sale Transaction, Solaris acquired Sunnova’s residential solar servicing, operations & management platform, as well as its solar generation and storage portfolio.
