Petra Solar, Inc., a New Jersey company making pole-mounted solar systems for utilities, has raised $40 million in funding.
Two new investors, Craton Equity Partners and Espírito Santo Ventures, led the latest round with 100% participation from existing investors, Element Partners, Blue Run Ventures, OnPoint Technologies (U.S. Army's Venture Fund) and Kuwait's National Technology Enterprises Company (NTEC).
Petra Solar plans to use the new round of financing to expand its customer
base, with plans to hire another 30 executive and professional
employees immediately. By the end of 2010, the company expects to
employ 165 people, a ten-fold increase from its base of 15 last spring.
Right now the company is actively recruiting throughout the United
States to support growth including but not limited to project
developers, regulatory experts, account managers, engineers and
manufacturing staff.
Petra Solar is currently shipping its pole-mounted photovoltaic systems in
volume. New Jersey utility PSE&G has ordered 200,000 of the units.
In June 2009, Petra Solar formed a marketing and development partnership with Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP).
Petra Solar plans to expand its product line to
address new applications and market segments that leverage its Smart
Energy ModuleTM platform, which integrates utility grade power
management, smart grid communications and grid availability features
into a single system. Petra
Solar participated in the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems program, and recently received $2.9 million in DOE funding.
