Morgan Solar Inc., a Toronto-based solar energy start-up secured US$4.7 million in Round A funding from Iberdrola Group SA, Nypro Inc, and Turnstone Capital Management LLC.
Morgan Solar has developed a Concentrated Solar Photovoltaic (CPV) panel called the Sun Simba HCPV designed for utility scale and large distributed generation applications.
"Iberdrola Group is the biggest possible industry partner we could have, and Nypro are global experts in the manufacturing processes we use. That these companies got in early with us makes me realize how big this could be," said John Paul Morgan, Chief Technology Officer at Morgan Solar and inventor
of the proprietary optics technology.
A syndicate led by Turnstone Capital Management LLC and including Inversiones Financieras Perseo SL, the venture initiative of Iberdrola Group and New Ventures Group LLC the venture investment subsidiary of Nypro Inc will fund Morgan Solar’s migration from research and development to manufacturing. The first tranche of this first investment round is now closed and an additional investment tranche will close soon, according to a release.
Iberdrola Group, the largest electrical utility in Spain, one of the five largest electrical utilities in the world and the world’s largest investor in renewable energy has taken an early stake in the company by investing US$2.5 million.
Pedro Velasco, Director of Non-Energy Businesses at Iberdrola Group said, "Iberdrola’s venture initiative, Inversiones Financieras Perseo SL, is specifically dedicated to investing in early stage, paradigm changing renewable energy technologies that appear to have a very high success potential. We have reviewed hundreds of investment opportunities over the last few years and only invested in Morgan Solar and four others. Their CPV technology is revolutionary, highly efficient and simple to manufacture at very low costs."
Similarly, Nypro Inc, a global leader in precision injection molding and contract manufacturing with operations in 16 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, has invested USD $1.0 million and becomes a key partner in the manufacturing and product assembly by providing the capacity to quickly scale up manufacturing of the Sun Simba HCPV globally.
Morgan Solar is now putting together a pilot manufacturing facility to build the Sun Simba HCPV. Their plan is to deploy demonstration and evaluation installations soon, while fine tuning the manufacturing processes and moving toward commercial release in late 2010.
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