In what promises to be a dismal year for cleantech investment, there are two early bright spots.
Today SolFocus, a Silicon Valley company developing concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) technology, announced that it has raised $47m in series C financing. And earlier this week ZeaChem, a Colorado startup aiming to produce cellulosic ethanol, announced it raised $34m in series B financing.
For SolFocus, the cash will allow the company to deploy its first major commercial installations, in Greece and Spain. The round was led by Apex Capital with additional funding from New Enterprise Associates and NGEN Partners. By mid-February, SolFocus expects to close the round with a total of $60m to $70m in investment.
Concentrator photovoltaic systems use an array of mirrors to focus sunlight onto small, highly efficient solar cells. There have been a handful of commercial CPV installations built in recent years, but SolFocus’ planned installation in Spain will be the largest in Europe, and possibly the largest in the world. With these and future installations, SolFocus expects to deliver 15 megawatts in 2009 and 85 megawatts in 2010.
ZeaChem is developing a system that turns non-food (read, not corn) biomass into ethanol. Its new funds will go towards building the company’s first cellulosic biorefinery, which breaks ground this year. It will be a pilot plant, with the expectation that there could be commercial production by 2011.
The ZeaChem round was co-led by Globespan Capital Partners and PrairieGold Venture Partners, with additional investment from two other VC firms and, notably, Valero Energy Corporation, the largest petroleum refiner in the US.
Valero’s involvement suggests that while ZeaChem isn’t producing large quantities of ethanol right now, it is at least doing promising work on the refining front. The move also could signal a healthy bit of foresight for Valero – in a future without oil, the company is positioning itself to remain in the refinery business.
These investments come despite preliminary results from The Cleantech Group that indicate in the fourth quarter of last year, cleantech venture investment was just $1.7bn, the smallest quarterly total in six quarters, and down 35 per cent from the previous quarter. A tighter capital market this year will almost certainly make it more difficult for cleantech companies to attract new investment going forward.
