Acquired the third-largest residential solar installer in Central Texas — a 22-employee operator with $11M trailing revenue and a 1.4kW average system size. Sourced through an off-market broker relationship after the founder signaled intent to exit.
The target was the third-largest residential solar installer in Central Texas by trailing install volume. The founder had signaled exit intent to a regional M&A broker we'd worked with twice previously; within five business days we had the CIM, a QofE summary, and a draft LOI in front of the seller.
The thesis: Texas residential solar at the $11M revenue tier is a fragmented rollup play. A single installer at 1.4kW average system size sits below the threshold national platforms (Tesla, Sunrun, ADT Solar) will buy, but above the minimum size any strategic acquirer requires. That gap is the entry window. Dominion's play was to acquire, retain the founder, and roll up two to three additional Central Texas installers inside 18 months.
Capital stack: 55% senior debt against the contracted backlog and installer license intangibles, 35% LP co-invest from a single family office that has backed our energy vertical across three deals, and 10% sponsor equity. The seller rolled 18% of total proceeds into the new holdco — a meaningful alignment signal on operator retention and forward pipeline.
The Central Texas solar installer market has roughly 30 operators at the $3M–$15M trailing revenue tier. The thesis depends on consolidation: aggregator economics on procurement (modules, inverters, racking), shared back-office across acquired entities, and a unified sales funnel through a single Austin call center.
Our plan at acquisition: install Dominion OS into the target's back office on day one, fold the founder's operations team into the platform, and execute two follow-on installer acquisitions inside 12 months. The 1.4kW average system size is below industry median — that's a feature, not a bug, in a Texas market where smaller systems dominate the residential mix.
We closed in 58 days from LOI — eight weeks that included full QofE, legal, financing diligence, and a Texas-specific contractor license transfer. The founder retained as COO with revenue-tied earn-out terms. Inside 90 days post-close, the install pipeline ran 2.3× trailing volume as the founder's relationships converted against the unified sales funnel.
| Tranche | Amount | % of Stack | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior Debt | $6.49M | 55% | 7-year SBA-style facility; SOFR+385 |
| Mezzanine | — | — | Not required; senior 7-yr clears DSCR |
| LP Co-Invest | $4.13M | 35% | Single family office; energy-vertical backed |
| Sponsor Equity | $1.18M | 10% | Dominion principal balance sheet |
| Founder Rollover | $2.12M | 18% | 18% roll into new holdco |
Operator-recap stack: founder rollover layers on top of new-capital 55/35/10 — non-cash alignment signal.
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Austin-based regional installer roll-up sponsor concentrating on residential and small-commercial distributed solar across Central and South Texas. Pairs local permitting depth with capital-efficient operator recap structures.
Lone Star completed three installer acquisitions with Dominion between 2021 and 2023 across the Texas Triangle, each structured as an operator recap with rolled equity and an earn-out tied to post-close pipeline conversion. Two of the three followed-on into adjacent service-area tuck-ins inside 18 months.