In 1989, Michael Sonnenfeldt invested in Solar Outdoor Lighting Inc. (later renamed SOL Inc.), a Florida company that manufactured the first generation of solar powered street lights. The company had a promising set of products, but faced headwinds that necessitated additional capital raises throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. As the primary underwriter of SOL’s equity, Sonnenfeldt owned 90% of the company by 2007.

While SOL struggled to become economically successful, it played a growing role in responding to humanitarian crises by quickly installing solar lights after disasters to enable essential services to continue at night. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the SOL team was one of the first on the ground, donating half a million dollars’ worth of outdoor solar lights for the airport, emergency medical clinics, feeding stations, and search and rescue sites. After the 2011 tsunami in Japan, SOL lit up a pier so local fishermen could begin fishing at 4 a.m. and begin to rebuild their livelihoods.

Even though SOL was not yet profitable, Sonnenfeldt’s decades with the company only strengthened his commitment to solar energy. In 2010, Sonnenfeldt invested in Carmanah Technologies, a public Canadian company that manufactured solar-powered landing lights for airports, solar-powered marine navigational aids, and solar street lights in competition with SOL. At the same time, innovations in solar panels and battery storage were increasing efficiency and decreasing costs in dramatic ways that paved a pathway to economic success in the solar lighting space.

It took nearly five years, and substantial capital and patience, but in 2014 Sonnenfeldt merged SOL and Carmanah and put the combined entity on a path to profitability. Sonnenfeldt became the Chairman of Carmanah and, in partnership with a talented CEO, John Simmons, delivered on both of Carmanah’s bottom lines: profit and impact. Carmanah grew from an enterprise value of $6 million at its low point in October 2013 to approximately $140 million in August 2019 when it was taken private and MUUS sold its final tranche of shares.

By merging SOL into Carmanah, Sonnenfeldt was able to preserve the mission of SOL, recoup decades of losses, and achieve a strong return on the investment. The success story has been a lasting lesson on the power of patient capital in delivering financial returns and sustainable impact.