Photovoltaic material maker Wakonda Technologies Inc. today will announce a $9.5 million Series A round that will fund the development of high-efficiency, low-cost solar cells.
Investors include Advanced Technology Ventures, General Catalyst Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, Applied Ventures LLC, and the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund. The company is developing a material that it claims will match that the high efficiency of gallium arsenide and other expensive compounds used in special applications like satellite solar panels. Wakonda's technology, however, will produce similar performance for far less than the $10,000 per square meter cost of today's specialty photovoltaic materials, the company claims.
The company has been developing its technology with the Rochester Technology Institute, where its cofounder and chief technology officer Ryne Rafaelle is a researcher, and with Cornell University and the NASA Glenn Research Center. -- Olaf de Senerpont Domis
For more, see Fabtech.org
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