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— Burn Rate —
Investors are betting on AVA's ability to produce high-efficiency solar panels cost-effectively. The company's products can operate in both hot and cold regions under a variety of conditions. AVA will use the funding to finish building its first production facility in Longmont, Colo., which will have the capacity to produce 200 megawatts of photovoltaic modules annually.
Another solar company socking away lots of capital is Nanosolar Inc. of San Jose, Calif. The company recently added $50 million to a $300 million funding round announced in March. Nanosolar has raised half a billion dollars. Like AVA, the company has attracted a wide assortment of financial and strategic backers. They include Arlington, Va., power company AES Corp.; private equity firms Carlyle Group of Washington and Energy Capital Partners of Short Hills, N.J.; Greenwich, Conn., hedge fund Lone Pine Capital LLC; French utility Electricité de France SA; and the Skoll Foundation, the private investment vehicle of former eBay Inc. president Jeff Skoll. Nanosolar makes solar panels designed for utility-scale power plants. The company claims its cell and panel design enables its panels to carry five to 10 times more current than typical thin-film panels. -- David Shabelman As the self-imposed, possibly already-delayed, sometime-in-September-but-we-won't-say-when deadline to launch MySpace Music approaches, the joint venture appears to be ready to make its debut without a new CEO in place. An industry source with knowledge of the company's executive search says one of MySpace Inc.'s top dogs -- either CEO Chris DeWolfe or COO Amit Kapur -- will serve as its official interim chief executive when the new site launches in a few weeks. Social network and News Corp. unit MySpace joined with three of the four major record labels in April to announce a new music venture. The new service is expected to feature streaming songs and a download store with digital rights management-free tracks. Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group Corp. and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, all of New York, will have stakes in the joint venture alongside MySpace, while struggling EMI Group plc has yet to complete a deal to participate. Launching MySpace Music without a new CEO would represent a victory for those members of its technology staff who have urged senior management to delay the hire until the site is off the ground. Various industry figures, including Topspin Media Inc. CEO Ian Rogers, Providence Equity Partners Inc.'s Jim Bankoff, BigChampagne chief executive Eric Garland and Benchmark Capital entrepreneur-in-residence David Goldberg, have already turned down the job, while former CBS Radio Inc. president and Universal Music executive Andy Schuon is reportedly among those under consideration. MySpace still isn't talking about personnel or giving an official launch date, although at least one report declares that a Sept. 15 launch date is "a lock." We'll see. -- Paul Bonanos Biofuel technology developer Solazyme Inc. has raised a $45.4 million third round from new investors Braemar Energy Ventures of New York and Lightspeed Venture Partners of Menlo Park, Calif. Previous investors Roda Group and Harris & Harris Group Inc. also participated. The five-year-old South San Francisco, Calif., company, whose technology transforms algae into biofuel, plans a commercial production plant, ostensibly why it needed to gather such a substantial amount of money. Algae is considered an increasingly important source for liquid fuel because of its ability to quickly photosynthesize light into biomass. -- Olaf de Senerpont Domis |
A range of investors are doubling down on solar technology companies. 
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