Yellow Door Energy has raised a $65 million Series A to invest an expansion effort in the Middle East. It is one of the largest commercial and industrial-scale solar developers in a region inked more by massive utility-scale development.

It has been effective in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, two of the more appealing regional markets for distributed generation.

This boost represents one of the biggest venture investments on record for a Middle Eastern solar company, noted Ben Attia, who tracks the region for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.

“It’s a green sign for the Middle East’s distributed PV segment broadly, as more markets slowly open up,” Attia said.

The investors included Mitsui, Equinor Energy Ventures, the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation and Adenium Energy Capital, Yellow Door’s founding investor. The International Finance Corporation, a World Bank affiliate, also has joined the round.

Yellow Door explained it would use the $65 million “to scale its investments in solar energy and energy efficiency solutions in the Middle East and Africa.” That’s a ultimate dollar amount compared to other investments in these emerging markets.

Attia said “DG markets across the region are still lacking clear policy frameworks and cost-reflective retail tariffs, but there are bright spots — Israel, Oman, Nigeria and Senegal are rapidly attractive for C&I projects in particular,”.

Yellow Door’s projects till date have aimed attention on large commercial clients in the UAE, including the InterContinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi, Nestle’s Dubai campus and a Unilever factory, as well as various hospital and business customers in Jordan.

According to Wood Mackenzie research from 2018, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman and the UAE will install a cumulative 22.4 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2023. Most of that expansion has come from large projects awarded through competitive reverse auctions.