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News >> Technology >>
Konarka raises $13.5 M in series B
By siliconindia
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Monday, 04 November 2002, 20:30 IST
LOWELL, MA: Konarka Technologies, Inc. (KTI), a developer of portable photovoltaic technologies for converting sunlight and indoor light into direct current electrical energy, announced today that it has closed its Series B round of financing, having raised $13.5 million.
Lead by Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), three other venture capital firms also joined the round: Zero Stage Capital (leader in Round A), Ardesta LLC, and NextGen Partners. Corporate investors ChevronTexaco and Eastman Chemical Company completed the round.
Coincident with the funding, DFJ Director Raj Atluru has joined Konarka's Board of Directors.
"Konarka's ability to acquire this funding under current market conditions is an indication of the strength of the Konarka team, its technology and significant progress in the first year of operation," said Atluru. "At DFJ, our goal is to invest in companies that offer world-changing technologies with enormous market potential. We see Konarka's approach to low-cost, flexible photovoltaics as just such an opportunity - and we believe they have the team to make it happen."
According to Konarka Chairman Howard Berke, "Konarka is stronger than ever. We now have the funds to fully develop our core technology and bring it to market. The current round of financing has provided us with more than operating capital; our new corporate investors offer important expertise in the fields of energy, chemicals and materials, and the addition of Raj Atluru to our Board opens the door to new and strategic opportunities."
"Konarka's initial business focus is on the commercialization of photovoltaic products based on low cost, scalable processing of dye-sensitized, cold sintered titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles. We have developed excellent partnerships with faculty and founders from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell campus and the EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) after receiving technology licenses from them in recent months," said Dr. Bill Beckenbaugh, Konarka President and CEO. "We now expand our total partnership through this new investor group, leveraging their global expertise, and accelerating product qualification of a series of nanotechnology materials innovations for sales into the major PV market segments."
Founded in June of 2001, Konarka Technologies, Inc. is an advanced research and development company, dedicated to the commercialization of power solutions based on a proprietary, solid-state, flexible, low cost photovoltaic (PV) platform.