Photonic Smart Coating Developer SunDensity Secures $2.5M in Seed Funding

SunDensity, developers of photonic smart coating (PSC) technology that increases solar power output, announced the closing of $2.5 million in initial financing. Clean Energy Ventures, a venture capital firm, led the round, in which Luminate, Rochester Angel Network (RAN), LaunchNY, and Clean Energy Venture Group also participated.

SunDensity PSCs hold additional applications in enhancing the performance of consumer electronics, including night-vision cameras and CCDs, and architectural glass and smart windows.

“As ubiquitous as solar energy is today, the sector has seen incremental improvements over the past two decades. SunDensity’s breakthrough technology brings a critical step-function increase in solar panel efficiency, further accelerating our transition to clean, renewable energy,” said Temple Fennell, co-founder and managing director of Clean Energy Ventures.

Photonic smart coating technology introduced by SunDensity is designed to coat any solar module, and to complement existing antireflective coating technologies for glass and materials manufacturers. The coating converts blue light that cannot be absorbed by solar panels into red light that can be readily converted into electricity. Applied underneath the glass in solar panels, the photonic coating has the potential to increase panel efficiency, enabling an increase of as much as 20% in power output for solar cells.

The coating traps and transforms light, allowing manufacturers to apply the solar coating with widely available magnetron sputtering tools.

SunDensity was recently selected as the winner of the Luminate NY competition. Chosen as the “Company of the Year,” SunDensity secured a $1 million investment from the Empire State Development’s Finger Lakes Forward Upstate Revitalization Initiative.