ConnectDER

Market position

The company describes itself as a pioneer of the meter socket adapter over 15 years and states it helped author the UL 414 supplements that other manufacturers follow. Its adapters have been adopted by large installers including Sunrun and Blue Raven Solar, and utilities including Consolidated Edison, Arizona Public Service, Entergy, Pennsylvania Power and Light and Green Mountain Power have deployed or approved its collars.

The adapters replace line-side taps, main panel upgrades and backup load subpanels with a single at-the-meter device that the company says installs in about 15 minutes and costs 10% or less of a service panel or utility interconnect upgrade. Installers quoted by the company report roughly 50% less installation time and cost for whole-home backup and avoidance of $5,000-$6,000 in circuit and subpanel work. IslandDER can also be installed in a separate customer-owned socket in territories where utilities have not approved meter collars.

Technology

The core technology converts the utility meter socket into an interconnection point. Devices include built-in circuit breakers, integrated current transformers, voltage sensing, smart load management and load shedding, data transmission, and, in IslandDER, a microgrid interconnect device enabling automatic grid disconnect, blinkless backup and manual override. IslandDER v1 Digital adds digital Ethernet communication. The devices are engineered for the most common residential meter sockets and are compatible with multiple leading solar, battery and EV equipment brands; IslandDER does not have a neutral wire.

Go-to-market

Sales to installers nationwide, paired with a utility-approval process that opens territories product by product; supported by installer resources, install manuals and integrations with battery and inverter manufacturers. The company cites a large addressable base of U.S. homes that lack capacity for solar, EV charging or resilient energy without costly equipment upgrades.

Residential solar, battery storage and EV charging installation companies, and the electric utilities that must approve and in some territories perform behind-the-meter installations; end beneficiaries are homeowners adding solar, backup power or EV charging.

Geography

United States and North America, headquartered in Philadelphia. As of the December 2024 Series D announcement the company was approved to sell in over 20 states covering more than 16 million households and expected to sell nationwide within a few years. The company lists behind-the-meter install markets including Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Texas, Vermont and Washington DC, roughly 50 utilities approved (varying by product), and 2026 approval from California's three largest utilities (SCE, SDG&E and PG&E), reaching more than 60% of the U.S. residential market.

History

In 2013 Fulton and the team contributed to the development of UL standards for meter socket adapters, including supplements A, B and C to UL 414. The first device, "The ConnectDER," reached the market in Vermont in 2014 with approval from Green Mountain Power for installation behind the utility-owned billing meter, followed in 2015 by a SMART version of the Solar MSA with intelligence and connectivity. Infinite Invention renamed itself ConnectDER in 2016 and raised a $1.1M Series A. The company surpassed 10,000 devices installed in 2017 amid utility adoption in Hawaii, New York, Pennsylvania and Arizona, and more than 20,000 by 2019. A $7.25M Series B closed in January 2020, followed by a $27M Series C reported in 2023 and a $35M Series D in December 2024, at which point Ivo Steklac was appointed President and CEO and founder Whit Fulton became Chief Product Officer. Product milestones include Solar MSA v1 (2014), v2 (2015), v3 (2017), v4 (2021), v5.1 and v5.2 (2023), EV MSA v1 (2024), Solar MSA Data Out and IslandDER v1 Analog (2025), and IslandDER v1 Digital (2026).

Risks & controversies

Deployment depends on utility approval of meter collars, which varies by product and territory and determines whether an installer, a joint crew or only a utility technician may perform behind-the-meter work; in unapproved territories only the IslandDER standalone-socket method is available.