NEWS REVIEW Sol Voltaics wins $9.4 million in funding
SOL VOLTAICS has completed a total of $15.6 million (SEK 102 million) in fresh funding by adding $9.4 million in an equity round to the $6.2 million Swedish Energy Agency loan. This will take its Solink nanomaterial for increasing the performance and energy output of solar panels into pilot production.
The round was led by Umoe, an investment company based in Norway, which had previously made an incubation level investment in Sol Voltaics. Umoe now joins Industrifonden, Nano Future Invest and Foundation Asset Management as the major shareholders of the company. Kent Janér, cleantech investor and CEO of Nektar Asset Management, also became an investor, joining veteran solar industry technologist and executive Erik Sauar, as a new private investor in Sol Voltaics.
With the investment, Sol Voltaics has reached its 2013 funding goals set
earlier in the year. In June, the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA), Sweden’s national authority for energy policy issues, provided the company a $6.2 million (SEK 41 Million) conditional loan. Sol Voltaics produces Solink, a GaAs additive for crystalline silicon or thin-film that enables modules to convert more of the sun’s light into electricity.
To date, the challenge of advanced materials is that they have been expensive to produce and difficult to implement. Solink will increase efficiency of solar modules by up to 25 percent from current levels using miniscule amounts of these novel nanomaterials. Solink’s Aerotaxy process for producing nanomaterials also dramatically reduces the cost of producing these materials while increasing uniformity and volume of production.
Solink is applied to conventional solar panels toward the end of the existing
module production process with relatively inexpensive standard equipment.
Solink anticipates producing functional solar cells made from gallium arsenide nanowires for demonstration by the end of 2013. Commercial production of Solink-enhanced modules will begin in 2015 and move into volume production in 2016. Sol Voltaics develops novel nanomaterials for enhancing solar panels and other products.
The company was founded in 2008 and is focused on improving the economics of solar PV applications by generating a higher efficiency.
Sol Voltaics is currently a development stage company and has received venture capital funding from Foundation Asset Management, Industrifonden, Nano Future Invest, Provider Venture, Scatec, Teknoinvest and Umoe. The company is based in Lund, Sweden
GigOptix and MACOM finally bury the hatchet
M/A-COM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc. (MACOM) and GigOptix, Inc., have agreed to a global settlement of all pending lawsuits between them.
The first lawsuit was filed by GigOptix last year against MACOM subsidiary Optomai, Inc. The filing related to three former employees of GigOptix who founded Optomai, Vivek Rajgarhia, Vikas Manan and Stefano D’Agostino, and MACOM, in Santa Clara County, for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of contract.
MACOM then hit back with a counterclaim in the Northern District of California, alleging that GigOptix’ polymer technology was infringing on two patents in which MACOM claims rights.
The parties have agreed to file joint requests with the relevant courts to fully and finally dismiss both cases, with prejudice.
MACOM has agreed to make a one-time settlement payment of $7.25 million to GigOptix concurrently with the filing of the dismissals, which are expected to take place next week. Neither party will admit liability to the other and each side is satisfied with the confidential settlement reached between the parties.
MACOM is a supplier of high performance RF, microwave, and millimetre wave products while GigOptix is a supplier of advanced semiconductor and optical communications components.
October 2013
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