Soladigm, which develops energy-efficient glass for buildings, has raised $30m in its series C round after being identified by New York-listed industrial conglomerate General Electric’s clean-tech open innovation competition.
DBL Investors, a venture capital (VC) firm created from the spin-out of the Bay Area Equity Fund I from investment bank JP Morgan in January 2008, and Switzerland-based peer NanoDimension, which focuses technology manipulation at the atomic scale, co-led the round.
VC peers Khosla Ventures and Sigma Partners reinvested while Cynthia Ringo, a partner at DBL has stepped on to Soladigm’s board to join Khosla’s Pierre Lamond (who replaced Samir Kaul as the VC’s representative) and Sigma’s Fahri Diner.
Sigma and Khosla had backed Soladigm’s $21m previous round last year.
The final disclosed investor in Soladigm’s C round was GE’s Energy Financial Services division.
Last month, GE selected Soladigm as one of 12 business partners for investment and commercial partnerships through its ecomagination Challenge, a $200 million fund for entrepreneurs, innovators and students to share their best ideas on how to build the next-generation power grid. Soladigm’s window technology electronically switches glass from clear to tinted, enabling control of heat and glare that can cut bills by a quarter in commercial buildings.
Kevin Skillern, managing director of venture capital at GE Energy Financial Services, said: "With GE’s green homes and green hospitals programs, our zero energy home program and other smart grid and energy efficiency initiatives, we see multiple avenues for collaboration with Soladigm’s Dynamic Glass technology [pictured]."
Rao Mulpuri, chief executive of Soladigm, which was formerly known as Echromics, said: "In addition to our funding, we are honored to have been among the esteemed list of GE ecomagination Challenge winners and are excited to partner with a global leader like GE to drive advancements in building technology."