We reported earlier this week on the resurgence of venture capital investment in greentech. We broke it out sector-by-sector in this post. The graph above breaks it down year-by-year and looks at the recovery quarter by quarter
The chart below is another example of some of the work done in the Greentech Innovations Report – where we carefully track every VC deal in greentech as well as report on a different renewable energy topic every issue.
Investors channeled $575 million into 29 solar VC deals in the third quarter. The investments spanned the solar sector and ranged from the fanciful (solar in space from SolarEn) to the sublime. Notable in this data is the number of small investments - early stage VC investing is not dead. Also notable are the 11 European and Asian investments, a larger than typical proportion. European VC is alive and well. The largest deal, Solyndra's $198 million, was a requisite piece of funding for Solyndra in order to garner their $535 million federal loan guarantee.
Does the VC model still work in big solar? Can massively-funded VC startups like Nanosolar ($500M in VC) and Solyndra ($800M+ in VC) provide a reasonable multiple for their investors? Or are the less capital intensive solar plays like SunRun or Enphase more suitable to the VC investor? The next few quarters should give us some answers.
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Q3 VC Investment in Solar |
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Solyndra |
$198M |
Argonaut Private Equity, USVP, CMEA, Rockport, Redpoint, et al. |
Cylindrical solar module – the recipient of a $535M Treasury Department loan |
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Suniva |
$75M Round C |
Warburg Pincus, Apex Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, HIG Ventures, Advanced Equities |
High-efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar cell manufacturer. Customers include Titan Energy and Solon, according to the CEO. |
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SolFocus |
Closed the C Round with an additional $30M |
Apex Venture Partners, NEA, NGEN, Yellowstone Capital, Demeter Partners, Advanced Equities, et al. |
HCPV |
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Cobol Technologies (India) |
$30M |
Pangea Capital |
Solar developer |
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Borrego Solar |
$30M |
Taiwan's Walsin Lihwa |
PPAs for schools, companies and government organizations – Borrego ended 2008 with $58M in revenue and more than $90M in contracts. |
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Energy21 (Czech Rep) |
$21.5M |
Darby Overseas Investments |
Solar developer plans 40MW of installed capacity in Central and Eastern Europe |
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Kovio |
$20M Round E |
Bessemer, DAG Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Harris & Harris, JVP, KPCB, Mitsui Ventures, Northgate Capital, Panasonic, Pangaea, Pinnacle Ventures, Yasuda |
Printed silicon electronics and thin film technology. Heard to be considering a move into thin-film PV. Vinod Khosla on BoD. |
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Danen (Taiwan) |
$19.1M |
Israel’s Giza Venture Capital, et al. |
Solar ingot and wafers, wafer slicing |
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SunRun |
$18M Round B |
Foundation Capital, Accel Partners |
SunRun provides turnkey residential solar systems with low start-up costs – customers do not own the systems, but buy the power at a fixed rate from SunRun. Solar as a service |
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Arava Power |
$15M |
Siemens |
Develops, builds and operates PV plants in Israel |
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Energos (Italy) |
$14.6M |
Climate Change Capital Private Equity |
Large-scale solar farms – EPC, O&M, system integration |
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SPG Holdings |
$13M |
Global Environmental Fund, Robeco |
Design and installationof solar systems |
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Plextronics |
$12M |
The Solvay Group |
Organic solar cells |
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Solar Power Inc. |
$12M PIPE |
WI Harper |
Vertically integrated solar energy provider |
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eIQ Energy |
$10M |
NGEN, Robert Bosch VC |
Distributed electronics for PV installations |
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Voltaix |
$9M |
Novus Energy Partners |
Chemical precursors for creating semiconductor layers in solar cells. Voltaix competitors include Linde, Air Products, Sixtron |
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Innotech Solar (Norway) |
$8.4M |
Sustainable Technologies Funds, Northzone Ventures |
Production process for solar cells to be made from non-prime cells from other solar cell producers |
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Liquidia Technologies |
$7M |
Canaan Partners, Pappas Ventures, NEA, Wakefield Group, Firelake Capital |
Nano-scale patterns on polymer films to improve the light management and efficiency of PV cells |
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Sungevity |
$6M Round B |
Greener Capital |
Online sales for residential solar services |
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eSolar |
$5M add-on |
ACME Group |
Solar thermal power developer eSolar and ACME Group are in a deal to build 1 GW of solar power plants over the next 10 years in India |
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Solar Mimizan (France) |
$3.6M |
Frey Nouvelles Energies, 123Venture |
Developer of solar power and building-integrated solar projects |
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Crystalsol (Estonia) |
$3.5M |
Conor Venture Partners, Energy Future Invest, et al.
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Copper zinc tin sulfoselenide (CZTS) based PV |
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Circadian Solar (UK) |
$3.3M |
Seven Spires Investments |
High concentration PV via fresnel lens on GaAs multi-junction solar cells and precision tracking |
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Tecnisun (France) |
$2.2M |
123Venture |
Solar thermal collectors – vacuum tubes and heat pipes |
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QuantaSol (UK) |
$2M |
LCA, Imperial Innovations, Numis Securities, Sheffield University |
Quantum-well solar cells for CPV |
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GreenRay |
$2M Round A |
Quercus Trust, 21Ventures
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Solar modules integrated with microinverters |
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Tuusso Energy |
$2M |
Pivotal Investments, Akula Energy |
Developer of utility-scale solar projects in the Western U.S. |
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Metallkraft (Norway) |
$1M |
Capricorn Venture Partners |
Technology that recycles the slurry created from producing solar panels |
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Solaren |
$600K |
Undisclosed |
Space-based solar panels. |
