Solar Notion, a solar energy company, raises $10M to reduce cost "500 percent"

September 20, 2007 | Matt Marshall

Solar Notion, a Sunnyvale, Calif. maker of solar energy panels, has raised around $10 million in a first round of funding led by hedge fund Third Point, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Wire.

The company, still secretive, says on its Web site that it is developing technology to reduce manufacturing cost of solar panels by “over 500%, while achieving the efficiency and reliability of single crystal silicon solar panels.”

That’s their emphasis in italics, not ours. It’s also somewhat strange wording, because how do you reduce cost by over 500 percent? Perhaps they mean they want to reduce cost to a fifth or sixth (depending on your math) of what current silicon-based panels cost?

Already, this company is worrying us.

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Tags: deal

About the Author, Matt Marshall

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.