Bangalore: The Indian Solar company Sunborne Energy backed by Billionaire Vinod Khosla has raised $5 Million ( 28.4 Crore) in its latest round of VC funding which is a part of $20 Million ( 113.5 Crore)  expected to be raised shortly. With its ongoing power project in Karnataka for which the contract was obtained in April 2012, Sunborne Energy Holdings LLC is utilizing the untapped potential of solar energy in India and expects to expand across India.

“This is a part of our ongoing fundraising,” Chief Operating Officer Gagan Vermani told Bloomberg.com without identifying the investor. The Gurgaon based Sunborne Energy started its operations in India in 2008 and has since then bid for solar projects in 4 states ( Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka.) The Solar project has been operational in Gujarat generating upto 15MW of power and Karnataka (to build a 10-megawatt solar- thermal project) being the latest addition to start a project. On April 30, the country’s installed solar capacity was estimated at 1GW.

According to Sunborne Energy Officials- Solar power generated in less than 5 percent of the Thar desert will suffice the electricity need of the country. India which is still waking up to the advantages of solar energy sees competition from the cheap solar powered cells sourced from Chinese market.

Vinod Khosla who prefers investing in clean tech projects especially focusing on sectors like the biofuels heads the Khosla ventures operational from California and manages approximately $1 Billion of investor capital as well as investments funded by Khosla himself. He is a strong supporter of clean technology and has reportedly said ‘If it doesn't scale, it doesn't matter. Most of what we talk about today—hybrid, biodiesel, ethanol, solar photovoltaics, geothermal—I believe are irrelevant to the scale of the problem.’