Brian Sager, the co-founder of thin film solar pioneer Nanosolar made a relatively rare appearance at a sold-out EBC panel I moderated in Mountain View, California last week.  The event ostensibly covered creative financing although we discussed a wide variety of greentech topics.

Other speakers included:

  • Sempra's Manager of Technology Development - David Berokoff
  • Physic Ventures Director Andrew Williamson
  • The CEC's Matt Coldwell, Program Manager Small Grants Program and Norman Bourassa, Buildings End-Use Energy Efficiency Program

Nanosolar's message control and corporate code of omertà makes Karl Rove and the Corleones look like schoolboys.  Sager warned me before the panel that he would not be making any prognostications about Nanosolar's business.  Nor would he be willing to even answer questions about the future of the solar market.  He simply would not answer questions about the future, about things he did not know.  No forward looking questions.

So when it came to Nanosolar - it was all rear-view mirror.  It remains an interesting story.

According to Sager, when Nanosolar won it's initial venture funding - it was the first time Sand Hill Road invested in a solar company.  But before and after that precedent, Nanosolar has used every avenue of funding one could think of to fund their potentially disruptive thin film solar firm, now at about $500 million in funding to date.

  • Angel funding - Sergey Brin, Reid Hoffman, Larry Page, Sunil Paul, et al.
  • Government Grants - from the California Energy Commission, DOE, DARPA and DoD
  • Traditional VC for their Round A - Benchmark Capital, USVP
  • Greentech VC for their Round B - MDV
  • Corporate Venture Funds - Swiss Re, Mitsui & Co.
  • Niche VC - OnPoint Ventures (The US Army's venture fund)
  • Private Equity - the Carlyle Group, Lone Pine Capital
  • Strategics - Utilities EDF and AES Corporation
  • Venture leasing - Western Technology Investment
  • Regional subsidies - from San Jose, CA and local German governments

So, other than founder credit cards and bank robbery - that might exhaust the available avenues of start-up financing.

As mentioned - no new info about Nanosolar but a few facts of note:

  • The founders and the founding investors weren't investing in the CIGS material system so much as they were investing in the roll-to-roll printing model.  In fact, the founders had looked at a number of other materials systems prior to settling on CIGS.
  • Nanosolar has filed more than 350 patents

Eight years or so after their founding, 2010 is the year for Nanosolar to ramp production and prove they can meet their stated goal of low LCOE.

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