The host of corporate venturers backing US-based solar power producer BrightSource Energy has increased as part of a $150m fourth funding round.
Engineering company Alstom has provided $55m of the series D round to BrightSource as a new investor, its first move into solar power. The other new investor in the series D round was the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (Calstrs).
They were joined by previous investors in BrightSource, which has raised more than $160m, according to company figures and news provider VentureWire.
These previous investors have included Google.org, BP Alternative Energy, StatoilHydro Venture and Black River, which invested in the $115m series B round in May 2008, and Chevron Technology Ventures, Morgan Stanley, DBL Investors (formerly a subsidiary of JP Morgan) and venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and VantagePoint Venture Partners that invested in the early-2007 series A round.
In February, BrightSource received a conditional commitment from the US Department of Energy for $1.4bn in loan guarantees to support the financing of BrightSource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project. Once constructed after work starts later this year, Ivanpah is expected to be the world’s largest solar energy project, nearly doubling the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the US today.
Alan Salzman, managing partner of VantagePoint, said: "With BrightSource’s proven ability to hit commercial and technological milestones, we see no limit to the company’s potential in transforming global power markets."
BrightSource is the parent of Jerusalem, Israel-based BrightSource Industries Israel (BSII), formerly called Luz II.
In June 2008, BrightSource launched the Negev Solar Energy Development Centre, a demonstration plant producing the world’s highest temperature steam from solar energy, at the Rotem Industrial Park near Dimona, Israel.