HelioVolt Completes $77 Million Series B Funding Round

HelioVolt Corporation, a producer of highly-efficient thin film solar products, recently announced it has closed $77 million in Series B financing. Paladin Capital Group and the Masdar Clean Tech Fund co-led the round with support from returning investor New Enterprise Associates as well as Solcar Energia, Morgan Stanley Principal Investments, Sunton United Energy and Yellowstone Capital. Funds will be used to build HelioVolt Corporations first factory and bring Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) thin film enabled solar products to market.

CIGS thin film is emerging as one of the most exciting frontiers in cost-effective solar technology. We believe that HelioVolt has the technical understanding and market vision to achieve near term successes and deliver on long term potential, said Ken Pentimonti, principal at Paladin Capital Group. Given the enormous promise of low-cost CIGS thin film, we are more than pleased to have a technology leader such as HelioVolt in our portfolio.

Nadim Barakat, Managing Director at Credit Suisse and the general partner of the Masdar Clean Tech Fund, added, With significant market opportunities emerging across todays entire renewable energy sector, HelioVolts proprietary FASST manufacturing process represents the breakthrough that can establish solar energy as the most economical and practical choice for distributed electricity generation.

Clean energy is a global need, and we are proud to have the support of a premier group of financial and market partners as we target those international markets, said B.J. Stanbery, Ph.D., CEO of HelioVolt. This funding round marks the next step in our sustained path toward developing and delivering streamlined CIGS-based systems for both conventional solar modules and building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products.

Building off of founder and CEO Dr. B.J. Stanberys experience with high-efficiency photovoltaics, HelioVolt is commercializing its FASST process to manufacture CIGS, natures most efficient photovoltaic material. Recently lauded as a 2006 Wall Street Journal Innovation of the Year and a Time Magazine Best Invention of 2006, HelioVolts CIGS thin film technology is 100 times thinner, and 100 times more absorbent, than traditional silicon and 10 times faster to produce than alternative CIGS manufacturing methods.

HelioVolt Corporation was founded in 2001 in order to develop and market new technology for applying thin film photovoltaic coatings to a variety of substrates including conventional construction materials. The companys proprietary FASST process, based on rapid semiconductor printing, was invented by HelioVolt founder Dr. Billy J. Stanbery, an eminent expert within the international PV community in the materials science of CIGS and related compound semiconductors. FASST is a low-cost, flexible manufacturing process for CIGS synthesis and is protected by both nine issued US patents and by numerous global patents pending.

For more information, please visit www.heliovolt.com