# Nithish Sairam

> Nithish Sairam is the co-founder and CEO of Illumine-i, a solar and power-engineering design firm he built after stints at Tesla and NextEra Energy. Under his leadership the bootstrapped firm expanded from a five-person team to roughly 240 engineers across offices in Fremont, Austin, and Chennai, and has been described as the largest independent digital design engineering firm in the residential PV solar sector.

- **Role:** CEO at Illumine-i
- **Organizations:** Illumine-i, Illumine Industries Private Limited
- **Nationality:** Indian
- **Education:** B.E. Mechanical Engineering, Anna University (KCG College of Technology), M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Arizona State University, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Program, Stanford Seed
- **Known for:** Co-founded Illumine-i in 2015 and grew it to roughly 240 employees across Fremont, Austin, and Chennai without external capital until 2024, Raised ~$2M Series A from Anicut Capital in early 2024, Illumine-i announced as the world's largest independent digital design engineering firm in the residential PV solar sector

## Career timeline

- **2013** — Research Engineer at Arizona State University
- **2014** — Joined Tesla as a Renewable Energy Engineer
- **2015** — Co-founded Illumine-i with Sudarsan Krishnan; joined OneRoof Energy as Sr. Renewable Energy Engineer
- **2017** — Head of Construction Automation Research and Project Management at NextEra Energy Resources
- **2019** — Became full-time CEO of Illumine-i
- **2024** — Raised INR 17 Cr (~$2M) Series A from Anicut Capital

## Achievements

- Co-founded Illumine-i in 2015 and grew it to roughly 240 employees across Fremont, Austin, and Chennai without external capital until 2024
- Raised ~$2M Series A from Anicut Capital in early 2024
- Illumine-i announced as the world's largest independent digital design engineering firm in the residential PV solar sector
- Managed and built utility-scale projects in the 5MW-100MW range earlier in his career at Tesla and NextEra

## Latest updates

- **2024-02** — Illumine-i closed ~$2M Series A from Anicut Capital, its first outside round after nine years of bootstrapping.
- **2024-09** — Interviewed on Sean White's Solar and Energy Storage Podcast about ASU, Tesla, NextEra, and the Stanford Seed Program.
- **2024-04** — Featured in EAI 'CEO Insights' on the firm's bootstrapping journey.

## Links

- Website: https://illuminei.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nithish-sairam-26358156
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/illumine_i
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/illumineiindustries

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/nithish-sairam
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-09