Green Wombat

Photo: Amonix

In The New York Times on Wednesday, I wrote about Southern California solar company Amonix scoring one of the biggest rounds of green tech funding this year — $129.4 million from investors led by Silicon Valley heavyweight Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers:

In one of the biggest green technology deals of the year, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm is leading a $129.4 million investment in a long-promising solar technology that is starting to gain traction in the United States.

The venture firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and other investors are making a big bet on Amonix, a company in southern California that has spent 20 years developing concentrating photovoltaic power systems that resemble gigantic solar panels.

Plastic lenses focus the sun on tiny but highly efficient solar cells to generate more electricity than conventional photovoltaic panels. The so-called multijunction cells, which were first developed to power satellites, use fewer expensive semiconducting materials like silicon.

“We have reviewed hundreds of solar companies, and Amonix stands out to us as one that has breakout potential,” said Ben Kortlang, a partner at Kleiner Perkins who formerly helped lead the alternative-energy investing unit at Goldman Sachs. “We believe this is the low-cost solar technology for sunny climates.”

You can read the rest of the story here.