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July 11, 2008
Berlin,
Germany: Sulfurcell Secures Financing for Major Expansion
Sulfurcell,
a developer and manufacturer of CIS/CIGSe (copper indium gallium
sulfide/selenide) photovoltaics has secured EUR 85 million ($
135M) equity funding for a significant expansion of its manufacturing
with a new plant in Berlin for the production of CIS/CIGSe based
thin-film solar modules.
The
new plant will have an annual capacity of 75 MW with an intermediate
expansion to 35 MW. With this significant financing Sulfurcell
will transfer its proprietary production technology, developed
in its pilot plant, into mass production. The round will also
fund Sulfurcell’s long-term oriented development projects.
The
round was led by Intel Capital, the global investment arm of Intel
Corporation, which invested EUR 24M (USD 38M) and co-led by Climate
Change Capital Private Equity (CPE, London) with an investment
of EUR 12M (USD 19M). Both investors were joined by a group of
leading European clean tech investors, AIG Investments (Zurich),
DEMETER (Paris), Zouk Ventures (London) and BankInvest Group (Copenhagen)
and Conetwork (Hamburg).
In
addition, existing investors BEU Berliner Energie Umweltfonds
GbR (a joint venture of Vattenfall Europe and Gaz de France),
Vattenfall Europe Venture GmbH, Ventegis Capital AG, Masdar Clean
Tech Investments Ltd. (New York), IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft
mbH, and other individual investors participated in the financing
round. EquityGate AG, Wiesbaden, acted as sole advisor to Sulfurcell
in the equity and debt raising process.
Dr.
Nikolaus Meyer, CEO Sulfurcell, said: “This funding round constitutes
a major milestone for Sulfurcell towards our goal of becoming
a global leader in CIS/CIGSe thin-film PV field. During its three
years of operation, Sulfurcell’s current pilot production line
has been successfully ramped to volume and reached a high level
of maturity along all key process indicators including module
power, throughput and yield.”
“With
our aesthetically outstanding product and our manufacturing technology
now ready for large-scale commercial roll-out, we have laid a
solid foundation for an aggressive growth strategy”, said Meyer.
“The capacity expansion to 75 MW annual production volume will
enable us to respond to the rapidly increasing demand from our
customers in all market segments and to deliver on the promise
of CIS/CIGSe thin-film PV technologies.”
“Sulfurcell
is a very exciting addition to Intel Capital’s global portfolio,”
said Heiko von Dewitz, Investment Director at Intel Capital responsible
for clean tech investments in Europe and Israel. “Intel Capital
invested in Sulfurcell because CIS/CIGSe thin-film PV have demonstrated
potential for high conversion efficiencies, provide opportunities
for further reduction of cost per watt, and enable emerging applications
such as BIPV (‘building integrated photovoltaics’). Sulfurcell’s
capacity expansion into high volume production will help with
broader market adoption.”
“We
are very pleased to be backing Sulfurcell’s management team”,
said Alex Betts, Partner of CPE. “Nikolaus Meyer and his colleagues
have proven Sulfurcell’s thin film CIS module manufacturing capability
at commercial scale with impressive levels of module efficiency,
yield and cycle times and are now embarking on expansion supported
by blue chip customer demand. Sulfurcell, being in the sweetspot
of our later stage expansion capital investment strategy, is an
excellent first investment for our fund.”
Further details about: Sulfurcell
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