Texas, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] SolarBridge Technologies, a microinverter developer announced that it has secured US $15 million in series B funding. The company has raised more than $27 million to date. Rho Ventures, a new investor in the company, led the financing round. Battery Ventures, which led series A funding, also participated in series B.
The funds will enable SolarBridge to finalize testing and certification, deploy additional beta sites, and ramp up production, the company said. They will also be used to expand its operations, sales and marketing teams.
“I am very pleased that SolarBridge’s innovative, module-integrated microinverter attracted both new and previous investors to this up round of funding. The interest that our integral, alternating current photovoltaic (ACPV) solution and monitoring system has generated in the investment community is a direct reflection of the significant opportunity we have in the solar market,” said Ron Van Dell, president and CEO, SolarBridge. “Our microinverter will dramatically reduce the LCOE for solar installations by improving system reliability, increasing energy production and simplifying the installation process.”
In March, SolarBridge was awarded $1.5 million from the State of Texas through the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF) for the development of its module-integrated microinverter and management system. SolarBridge said that it would use these funds to accelerate product development as the company prepares for the 2010 launch of the SolarBridge Microinverter.
A diverse market, the landscape includes micro-inverters like those offered by Enphase Energy and Direct Grid Technologies, output maximization products from National Semiconductor and SolarEdge, as well as DC parallel technology like that being developed by Sustainable Energy Technologies and eIQ Energy. In total, IMS Research expects this space to represent US $700 million in yearly business, just under a third of the projected value of their inverter space as a whole, by 2014.
