Swift Solar, a company that designs and manufactures Perovskite-based photovoltaic cells, raised $27 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Eni Next, Eni’s corporate venture capital arm, and Fontinalis Partners, a mobility and deep tech VC firm that invests in startup companies. With this funding round, the company has raised a total of $44 million.
This funding round also involved new and existing investors, including Stanford University, Good Growth Capital, BlueScopeX, HL Ventures, Toba Capital, Sid Sijbrandij, James Fickel, Adam Winkel, Fred Ehrsam, Jonathan Lin, and Climate Capital.
The funding will help to accelerate the development of the company’s tandem technology and prepare for its first factory.
“People may not realize that solar manufacturing today is concentrated in China and Southeast Asia. Swift Solar will bring advanced solar manufacturing back to the U.S. and strengthen our domestic renewable energy sector,” said Joel Jean, co-founder and CEO of Swift Solar.
According to the company, Perovskite solar cell production involves less material and less energy, which will drive down manufacturing costs and carbon pollution. The performance gains and cost reductions from perovskite technology have the potential to decrease the cost of solar energy by up to 30%.
According to Mercom’s Q1 2024 Solar Funding and M&A report, global VC funding for the solar sector in Q1 2024 came to $406 million in 13 deals, an 81% decline YoY compared to $2.1 billion raised in 18 deals in Q1 2023. Funding declined 68% QoQ compared to the $1.3 billion raised in 19 deals in Q4 2023.
Caelux Corporation, a company developing perovskite-based solar technology to enhance module efficiency, closed a $12 million Series A3 funding round, bringing the total Series A funding raised to $24 Million. The round was led by Temasek, a global investment company, with participation from Reliance New Energy Limited, Khosla Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan, and Fine Structure Ventures.
