SolarEdge announced that GE Energy Financial Services has joined a US $23 million funding round to support its growth in the residential and large-scale solar photovoltaic markets. SolarEdge's other investors are US venture capital leaders Opus Capital and Walden International, the Israeli funds Genesis Partners and Vertex Venture Capital, and the Singaporean fund JP Capital Asia.

The funding—GE Energy Financial Services’ first investment in Israel—was announced at GE Global Research, GE’s research and technology development center in Niskayuna, New York, during a media forum on clean tech venture capital investing.

“We will use this financing to further promote our solar power harvesting system, which can be embedded in practically all types of solar photovoltaic panels to maximize power generation while dramatically reducing costs,” said Guy Sella, Chairman, CEO and co-founder of SolarEdge. “By partnering with GE, we benefit from the company’s proven R&D capabilities, energy technology expertise and deep commercial market reach.”

SolarEdge provides photovoltaic power harvesting and monitoring technology to maximize the energy output and cost efficiency of solar PV units. The company works with industry partners, including BP Solar, Schott Solar, Isofoton, HaWi Energitechnik and Gehrlicher Solar to embed its technology into photovoltaic panels to increase their power output by up to 25 percent and provide superior monitoring and control, without increasing costs.

Tendril, developer of integrated software/hardware platform to enable real-time, two-way communications between utilities/retailers and their customers on energy supply and consumption, also announced that it has reached a funding deals withGE Energy Financial Services.

GE Energy Financial Services is making the venture capital investment as a follow up to Tendril’s announcement in June that it raised $30 million in Series C funding, making it one of the best-funded energy management startups.

GE’s investment builds on its appliances partnership with Tendril. GE Consumer & Industrial and Tendril announced in July that they would integrate the TREE Platform to work with GE's dryers, refrigerators, washing machines and other appliances. GE appliances such as stoves, washers and dryers, dishwashers and refrigerators will communicate their power needs to the utilities in real-time. The utilities can then redistribute power as needed more efficiently.

“Tendril is a great strategic complement to GE’s suite of ecomagination and smart grid investments and products, with multiple commercial and technology development opportunities for collaboration,” said Alex Urquhart, President and CEO of GE Energy Financial Services.

The Tendril Residential Energy Management Ecosystem (TREE) is designed to help utilities operate more efficiently to improve customer service and comply with new regulatory requirements. The enterprise-class TREE Platform, with in-home devices and a suite of utility applications, provides a secure, end-to-end, open, standards-based energy management system.

Financial details of the transactions were not disclosed.