Stealthy solar startup SkyWatch Energy is in the process of raising $3.2 million in its first round of equity financing, according to a Securities and Exchanges Commission filing in June. Khosla Ventures this week divulged it invested in the company as a side note to an announcement that it had raised $1 billion for two new funds.
At the time of the SEC filing, the company had not yet closed the Series A round or received any of the money, but intended to complete the offering within a year. The document lists Samir Kaul, a general partner at Khosla Ventures, as a director on SkyWatch’s board.
The Khosla press release this week was one of the first public mentions of Mountain View, Calif.-based SkyWatch. Its web site contains only a logo incorporating a kite-shaped orange graphic, as well as a sign-in page, and the company declined to disclose any information when we called. SkyWatch’s LinkedIn profile notes only that it’s a “stealth mode” private company with 10 employees.
SkyWatch does, however, employ several experienced solar entrepreneurs. According to the company’s SEC filing, the chief executive is Gilad Almogy, who was previously a senior vice president in charge of display and thin-film products at semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker Applied Materials. LinkedIn profiles indicate that SkyWatch’s director of engineering, as well as a senior project manager for the company, also came from Applied Materials.
Meanwhile, Joe Lichy, who lists himself as SkyWatch’s director of technology on his LinkedIn profile, has experience with concentrating-solar technologies. Lichy previously served as a vice president at now-defunct flat-plate solar-concentrator company SV Solar, and also was formerly the president of another solar-concentrator company, NuEdison, which was bought by SV Solar in 2007.
Also named as an executive in the SEC filing is Gad Rosenfeld, former founder and CEO of a company called SoftMETERS and previously a
vice president for marketing at telecom equipment company Orckit Communications subsidiary Corrigent Systems. According to a cached web page, Rosenfeld told New Energy Finance back in July that SkyWatch would not necessarily focus on thin-film technologies.
We’ll be keeping watch for any further information about this company.
[...] Stealthy Khosla-Backed Solar Startup SkyWatch Energy Raising $3.2M [...]
[...] to an SEC filing (hat tip New Energy Finance) the stealthy company has raised $10.5 million. SkyWatch Energy was in the process of raising $3.2 million in its first round of funding late last year, but seems to have boosted [...]