Former Installer Aims to Revolutionize Rooftop Solar with Software-Only Approach

Artemis, a spinout from Monalee, bets its AI-powered platform can slash soft costs and streamline the solar installation process.

Mar. 3, 2026 at 8:23pm by Ben Kaplan

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Monalee, a direct-to-consumer solar installer founded in 2022, is shedding its capital-intensive construction business model and pivoting to a high-margin software provider. Its new spinout, Artemis, aims to bring a "Shopify-style" approach to the rooftop solar industry, using computer vision, machine learning, and automation to dramatically reduce soft costs and project timelines for installers.

Why it matters

For years, the hardware costs of rooftop solar have plummeted, but the soft costs - permitting, customer acquisition, and design - have remained stubbornly high. Artemis believes it can solve this problem by providing installers with a software platform that generates system designs and estimates in seconds, automates the permitting process, and enables a self-serve buying experience for consumers. If successful, this could help drive mainstream adoption of rooftop solar.

The details

Artemis' technology stack uses computer vision and machine learning, trained on over 200 million data points from real-world installations and 1.9 million human annotations. It can generate system designs and production estimates for solar and batteries in seconds, and will eventually include roofing and HVAC. The company is also developing agents to identify jurisdictional permitting requirements and auto-fill permit templates. Artemis claims this can reduce software-related soft costs by over 50% and compress quoting times from a week to a few minutes.

  • Monalee was founded in 2022.
  • Monalee acquired Colossus, a solar marketplace, in 2023.
  • Artemis closed a $6 million funding round earlier this year to pivot Monalee's business towards a pure software play.

The players

Walid Halty

CEO and co-founder of Artemis, a former Tesla solar sales employee who previously founded Colossus, a solar marketplace.

Artemis

A software spinout from Monalee, a direct-to-consumer solar installer, that aims to provide an embeddable self-serve platform for solar installers to streamline their sales and design processes.

Monalee

A direct-to-consumer solar installer founded in 2022 that is shedding its capital-intensive construction business model to focus on Artemis, its software platform.

Copec Wind Ventures

The San Francisco-based VC arm of the Chilean energy conglomerate that led Artemis' $6 million funding round.

Mark Dryden

An investor at Copec Wind Ventures who believes Artemis' extensive data sets give it a competitive edge in applying AI to the solar industry.

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What they’re saying

“The vision is ultimately, if you want to buy solar and storage...you enter an address, you can buy it, and we can install it the same day. That's the ultimate goal.”

— Walid Halty, CEO and co-founder of Artemis

“AI is as strong as the data underneath it, and Artemis has done a fantastic job of capturing all of these licenses to drone data sets and everything else.”

— Mark Dryden, Investor at Copec Wind Ventures

What’s next

Artemis is already integrating its platform with Copec's energy and e-mobility subsidiary Flux in Chile, with plans to expand its software-based approach to the burgeoning rooftop solar market in Latin America.

The takeaway

Artemis' software-centric model represents a potential breakthrough in addressing the long-standing challenge of high soft costs in the rooftop solar industry. If successful, its AI-powered platform could help drive mainstream adoption of residential solar by dramatically streamlining the sales, design, and permitting processes for installers.