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Solar panel startup SolFocus Inc. announced that it has added $11 million to the $52 million venture capital funding it announced in September. The $63 million was split between Mountain View, Calif.-based SolFocus and its affiliate, SolFocus Europe Inc. of Madrid. Nancy Hartsoch, SolFocus' vice president of marketing, said that the additional capital came from a large hedge fund that requested anonymity. SolFocus is a developer and manufacturer of solar energy equipment, including concentrator photovoltaic, or CPV, systems, as well as trackers and thermal technology. SolFocus Europe is an independent entity with its own board of directors, according to Hartsoch, who added that SolFocus holds an equity stake in SolFocus Europe. The two have cross-licensing agreements that allow the European entity to sell and market any technology developed on either side. Founded in September 2007, SolFocus Europe is still developing. The company did not reveal how much of the capital went to each unit. Proceeds from the first $52 million tranche of funds were split, with $27.4 million as Series A funds for SolFocus Europe and the $24.6 million balance going to the U.S.-based company. New Enterprise Associates of Menlo Park, Calif., led the rounds for both companies, joined by Moser Baer India Ltd. of New Delhi, NGEN Partners LLC of Santa Barbara, Calif., and Houston-based Yellowstone Capital Inc. and MetaSystem Group as well as individual investor David Gelbaum. A July 2006 Series A for SolFocus yielded $32 million and was led by NEA with participation from NGEN, Yellowstone Capital and Moser Baer. In March 2006, NGEN and Yellowstone Capital had backed the company with $3.5 million in seed money. Moser Baer, which contributed $7 million to the first round, is also the volume manufacturer of the company's products and the exclusive distributor of SolFocus' panels in India and neighboring countries. Hartsoch said SolFocus is in an extensive test phase. "We've got a number of test deployments and we're putting our first large-scale project in now in Spain, which is both commercial and test," Hartsoch said. The Spanish project is a program by the Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems for the installation of 3MW of CPV technology in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. SolFocus was selected as one of three winners for the program in October 2006. Beyond that, the company will be "ramping through 2008 into high volume by the fourth quarter of next year," said Hartsoch, "[as well as] additional R&D for the next-generation products." With the solar energy market more developed in Europe than in the U.S., SolFocus will initially focus on Western Europe, followed by the U.S. and then on to less industrialized countries. "We'll be pursuing some market expansion into the Middle East and we're also looking at Latin America," Hartsoch said.  Deal Video
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