Nanosolar Ups Funding to $0.5 Billion; Partners for Utility Power
By Nanosolar Communications - August 27, 2008As part of a strategic $300 million equity financing, Nanosolar has added new capital and brought its total amount of funding to date to just below half a billion U.S. dollars.
Last December, we introduced the Nanosolar Utility Panel(TM) to enable solar utility power — i.e. giving utility-scale power producers the solar panel technology to build and operate cost efficient solar power plants.
The tremendous demand for our unique product was matched by the desire to support us in scaling its availability even more rapidly and ambitiously.
Today we are pleased to announce that we have received strategic backing by partners ideally suited to accelerate the implementation of this business — in the form of product supply agreements, strategic collaboration, and equity investments.
As part of the transaction, the boards of directors of AES Corporation (one of the world’s largest power companies), the Carlyle Group, EDF (the world’s largest electric utility), and Energy Capital Partners signed off on investments into Nanosolar through Riverstone Holdings, EDF Renewables, and simultaneously formed AES Solar. A fraction of the oversubscribed Nanosolar equity round also included financial investors such as Lone Pine Capital, the Skoll Foundation, and Pierre Omidyar’s fund as well as returning investors including GLG Partners, Beck Energy, and Conergy founding investor Grazia Equity. The transaction closed in March 2008.
The new capital will allow us to accelerate production expansion for our 430MW San Jose factory and our 620MW Berlin factory. (Earlier, Nanosolar secured a 50% capex subsidy on its Germany based factory.)
