Germany-based solar film developer Heliatek secured up to €80m ($89m) in financing yesterday, including $46.8m in equity led by Innogy, a subsidiary of energy utility RWE.
The series D round included Tudag, the commercialisation firm of Technical University of Dresden (TU Dresden) and German public-private partnership High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF).
Utility Engie, as well as another RWE unit, Innogy Venture Capital, chemicals producer BASF, financial services provider BNP Paribas, CEE Group, Aqton, eCapital and Wellington Partners also took part in the round.
Heliatek was spun out of TU Dresden and Ulm University in 2006. The company produces an ultra-light organic solar film called HeliaFilm that is less than 1mm thick and which can generate energy on such surfaces as the roof of a car or the exterior of a building.
The capital will support the expansion of Heliatek’s manufacturing capacity over the next 18 months to the point where the spinout will be able to produce one million square metres of HeliaFilm each year.
The equity funding was raised alongside $22.3m in debt financing from the multilateral European Investment Bank’s InnovFin – EU Finance for Innovators scheme and a grant of up to $20m from KETs Pilot Lines, an initiative overseen by the German state of Saxony and funded by the European Regional Development Fund.
Heliatek has now accumulated approximately $160m in financing, including $22.5m in a 2014 series C round led by Aqton that included HTGF, Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen, an investment firm backed by the state of Saxony, BASF, Innogy Venture Capital, industrial product maker Robert Bosch, Wellington Partners and eCapital.
HTGF, Bosch, RWE Innogy Ventures, Wellington Partners and BASF’s corporate venturing unit, BASF Venture Capital, had previously taken part in a $27m round for the company in 2009.
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site Global Corporate Venturing.