Enphase had to cut its IPO price nearly in half to get public at all. In March 2012 the solar industry was in a slump, and investors had soured on anything with panels. Enphase sold microinverters, small boxes that sit under each solar panel and turn its power into the kind a house can use. Older systems used one big inverter for the whole roof. If one panel was shaded, the whole string suffered. Enphase's design fixed that.

One Panel at a Time

Martin Fornage and Raghu Belur founded the company in 2006 in Petaluma, California. Enphase put a small computer-controlled inverter on every panel. That made each panel work on its own, let owners track output panel by panel online, and avoided the high-voltage wiring of older setups. Home installers liked it because it was simpler to design and safer to work on. The bet was that this approach would win the rooftop market.

Six Dollars to the S&P 500

Enphase priced its IPO at $6 a share in March 2012 and listed on Nasdaq as ENPH. The price was far below its planned range of $10 to $12. The first years were hard, and the stock sank further. A new CEO, Badri Kothandaraman, cut costs and moved to cheaper chip-based designs. Sales and profits rose sharply. Enphase added batteries and joined the S&P 500 in 2021. It still trades on Nasdaq as ENPH.

Cover: Falcon on a Pine Tree with the Rising Sun, Utagawa Hiroshige. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a falcon at sunrise (sunlight turned into power).