SolFocus, a leading developer of Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) systems, today announced that it has closed its Series C Funding round having raised $77.6 million.
The company is completing its transition from pilot production to full scale commercialization, with the expansion of manufacturing from 0.5 megawatts (MW) in 2008 to more than 10 MW to be shipped this year, with capacity for over 50MW going into 2011.
The funds raised in this C Round will be used to support the company’s transition to volume production. SolFocus announced a first close on the C Round in January of this year, at which time it had raised $47 million. Since that first close the company has raised an additional $30.6 million, bringing the total round to $77.6 million.
“Closing a round of investment with more than $77 million is no small feat in this challenging fund-raising environment, and a good indication of market expectations for SolFocus in 2009 – the year of CPV commercialization,” said Mark Crowley, CEO and President.
The C Round was led by Apex Venture Partners, a Chicago-based venture firm focused on investments in companies in a variety of sectors including technology, software, IT infrastructure and telecommunications.
Follow-on participants in the round included New Enterprise Associates (NEA) who led the A and B Rounds for the company, NGEN and Yellowstone Ventures. New investors in the round include Demeter Partners, affiliates of Advanced Equities, and others. Advanced Equities, Inc. served as the financial advisor to SolFocus on the financing.
The SolFocus CPV design employs a system of reflective optics to concentrate sunlight 650 times onto small, highly efficient solar cells. The SolFocus 1100S uses approximately 1/1,000th of the active, expensive solar cell material compared to traditional photovoltaic panels, the company says.
The funding builds upon a series of milestones for SolFocus: the release of the SolFocus 1100S system in November; the largest CPV installation in Europe currently underway in Greece; the first certification of a CPV system to IEC 62108 standards, and the 15X capacity expansion of the company’s manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona.
SolFocus is headquartered in Mountain View, California with European operations headquartered in Madrid, Spain, and manufacturing in Mesa, Arizona as well as with manufacturing partners in India and China.
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