Insolight raises CHF2.3 million

Other participants in the round include Zürcher Kantonalbank and a group of private business angels.With a contribution of more than CHF 1.1 mio, investiere.ch was also the largest contributor to this round and helped Insolight identify and secure a highly relevant board member.

This first financing round acts as a cornerstone for achieving the next milestones. It will facilitate the completion of product development, demonstrate the performances on the field with multiple pilot installations in Lausanne and Madrid, and prove the reliability with qualification tests. This will result in a blueprint solar panel, ready to disrupt the rapidly growing solar market.

With their product, Insolight will enable the widespread adoption of solar energy on rooftops, by reducing solar electricity production costs—the critical hurdle for solar power to become cheaper than fossil or nuclear-based electricity.

In addition to the financing round, Insolight announced that Rainer Isenrich, CEO of Edisun Power Europe AG, agreed to join its board of directors. Isenrich’s industrial experience and solar background will assist the startup in their future key decision making.

About Insolight
Co-founded by Laurent Coulot, Mathieu Ackermann and Florian Gerlich in September 2015, Insolight is a Swiss start-up developing solar panels with twice the efficiency of conventional panels. The panels directs sunlight on smaller and highly efficient solar cells, which are normally used in satellites. Efficiency has a direct impact on return-on-investment for the consumer, effectively lowering the cost of solar electricity. The step-change Insolight is bringing to the market will make solar electricity competitive with other energy sources without subsidies

In August 2016, a third-party validation of Insolight’s technology done by the Fraunhofer-Institut (Freiburg, Germany) has demonstrated a record efficiency of more than 36% – double the market average. Insolight is now well on its way to market introduction with its first pilot site already running in Switzerland. Throughout 2018 Insolight is aiming at passing various norms and qualifications that will allow it to enter the market in 2019. The business model is to deliver a blueprint solution that is licensed to established manufacturers, who will produce and distribute the solar panels. 

(RAN /SK)