Tsing Capital backs solar panel maker Sunpreme

Capricorn led the initial funding round in Sunpreme and remains the company's largest investor.

The capital will be used to construct a facility in Jiaxing, China, allowing Sunpreme to expand its production capacity. The company has three US patents for what it claims is the first commercially viable metallurgical silicon solar cell technology that allows the production of high-efficiency solar panels at lower cost. Sunpreme hopes this technology means it can prevail in a solar industry blighted by oversupply and rapidly declining prices.

"We are now moving to scale production of the SmartSilicon cells in the new Jiaxing facility, near Shanghai, with world-class environmental and social management systems fully supported by the local government," said Ashok K. Sinha, Sunpreme's chairman and CEO, in a statement.

A number of US-based firms in the cleantech space have relocated some or all of their production to China, drawn by low operating costs and generous government incentives.

Last month, lithium-ion battery maker Boston-Power received a $125 million investment from the Chinese government, in partnership with GSR Ventures and existing backers Oak Investment Partners and Stockholm-based Foundation Asset Management. It will use the funds to build a state-of-the-art R&D and electric vehicle battery engineering facility in China.

Tsing Capital invested through its Beijing-based China Environment Fund III, which closed in December 2008 at $230 million. It was reported in May that IFC - already an LP in the third fund - had proposed a $20 million add-on investment. This would be used to bolster Tsing's planned fourth fund, which was said to have a target raise of $350 million, well in excess of the $250 million suggested last year.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Cleantech
• North America
• Expansion
• IFC
• Tsing Capital
• Cleantech
• Growth capital
• GSR Ventures
• China
• USA