• 1366 Technologies

  Led · Equity · May 2016

  1366 Technologies develops and sells its "Direct Wafer" furnace technology, which can produce multiple wafers at a time and reportedly drive wafer costs below $0.15 per piece. The company says the new funding will be used to further develop its Direct Wafer furnaces and to advance ongoing research and development initiatives. 1366 emphasizes wafer‑level innovation as a shift from prior industry focus on cell and module improvements. The company is headquartered in Bedford, MA and was founded in 2007. Since founding it has raised $107 million in venture capital and previously received a $150 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2016 it entered a long‑term strategic partnership with Wacker Chemie AG. 1366 Technologies develops the Direct Wafer process, a single-step method that pulls wafers directly from molten silicon rather than using multi-step ingot-based production. The company says this produces a new class of silicon wafers at substantially lower energy and capital cost, aiming to deliver solar at a cost less than coal. 1366 combines its technology with lean manufacturing and has begun preparing for large-scale commercial manufacturing with a planned plant. To support commercialization, it announced a 700 MW wafer supply commitment to Hanwha Q Cells and secured a strategic supply agreement and technical collaboration with Wacker Chemie. Wacker will provide the majority of the polysilicon for the plant at competitive terms and invest $15 million as an extension of 1366’s Series C to fund working capital and prepay initial silicon needs. The partnership with Wacker also includes transfer of silicon know‑how and facility design, engineering and construction expertise to support scale-up. 1366 is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts. 1366 Technologies develops Direct Wafer™ manufacturing technology to make silicon wafers in a single step by pulling them directly from molten silicon. The process is presented as a lower-energy, lower-capital alternative to traditional cast-and-saw wafer production, yielding significant wafer production cost savings. The company says the technology breaks historic efficiency and cost tradeoffs in photovoltaics and aims to deliver solar at a cost less than coal. 1366 combines its technology with lean manufacturing and a team of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to commercialize the approach. The company received a $10 million investment from Hanwha Investment Corporation to fund the construction of its first large-scale commercial factory, scheduled to be online in 2017. 1366 Technologies is a silicon wafer manufacturer that developed Direct Wafer®, a process that forms multi-crystalline wafers directly from molten silicon. Direct Wafer replaces multiple energy- and capital-intensive steps with a single process, uses 50% less silicon, eliminates slurry and halves silicon waste. The company positions the technology as delivering significant cost and sustainability benefits and aims to "deliver solar at the cost of coal." 1366 is preparing to build a 250 MW full-scale commercial manufacturing facility in the United States that will initially produce 60 million standard silicon wafers per year—enough to power more than 30,000 American homes. The company is headquartered in Bedford, MA. Financially, 1366 has raised $69.5M to date, including a recent Series C extension. 1366 Technologies develops and manufactures silicon wafers using its Direct Wafer™ technology aimed at reducing the cost to transform silicon into wafers. The company recently opened a demonstration factory in Bedford, Massachusetts and is led by CEO Frank van Mierlo. It will use the new funding to build a full-scale manufacturing facility that will initially produce 250 MW (about 60 million standard wafers) per year and later ramp to 1 GW annually. Building of the facility is scheduled to commence in 2014. Operational targets include accelerating production to reach more than 3,500 wafers per day (approximately 5 MW per year) for each furnace. After the Series C, the company has raised a total of $62M to date.

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