Alta Devices, a US-based company making solar panels, has raised $72m from a consortium including a number of corporate venturing units.
The corporate venturing units backing Alta in the round are: Energy Technology Ventures, a $300m corporate venturing joint venture launched in January by industrial conglomerate General Electric (GE), energy utility NRG Energy and oil major ConocoPhillips; power holding company Constellation Energy; Japan-based conglomerate Sumitomo’s Presidio Ventures; Ru-Com’s $350m Bright Capital unit; and Dow Chemical’s Dow Venture Capital.
The other investors are: Canada-based state pension fund Alberta Investment Management, Switzerland-based Good Energies, a quasi-corporate venturing unit backed by the Brenninkmeijer family, and venture capital firms August Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Crosslink Capital, DAG Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Technology Partners.
Christopher Norris, Alta’s chief executive, said: "There are a number of advanced materials that could demonstrate higher solar conversion efficiency than silicon.
To date, the challenge of these materials is that they have been expensive to produce and difficult to implement. Therefore, they are not currently an economic solution for addressing the world’s energy needs. We are working to solve this problem by leveraging new approaches in several disciplines."