Solestial – the solar energy company for space – announced a significant milestone with the closing of its $17 million Series A funding round led by AE Ventures. This funding round also welcomed new investors Crosscut Ventures, Zeon Ventures, and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation’s ME Innovation Fund (general partner: Global Brain Corporation), with participation from existing investors Airbus Ventures, General Purpose Venture Capital, Industrious Ventures, Stellar Ventures, and Techstars.
Solestial is the only space solar manufacturer with a demonstrated ability to self-heal radiation damage. This allows spacecraft manufacturers to significantly reduce cost and weight without sacrificing energy needs or performance.
With strong customer demand, Solestial prioritized scaling production. And since opening its Tempe, Arizona, manufacturing facility in 2023, the company has added square footage each year, more than doubled its workforce, and delivered commercial products to dozens of companies.
What the funding will be used for: The Series A funding round enables Solestial to continue scaling its manufacturing capacity of silicon photovoltaics to 1 megawatt per year, a rate comparable to the estimated annual manufacturing capacity of all US and EU III-V space solar companies combined.
New executive hiring: Along with the funding raise, Solestial also announced the appointment of Margo de Naray as Chief Executive Officer. De Naray – formerly Senior VP & GM of Space Products and Services at Astra – brings 20 years of extensive commercial and operations management experience in growth and high-tech environments. Founding CEO, Stanislau Herasimenka, will assume the role of Chief Technology Officer to focus on advancing the company’s product roadmap and rapidly scaling operations technology.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are thrilled to welcome Margo to lead Solestial into its next chapter. This transition allows me to continue developing our cutting-edge technology, while Margo brings additional strategic leadership and operational experience to deliver at scale.”
Stan Herasimenka, CTO and co-founder of Solestial
“We’re seeing tremendous market demand, and we are focused on delivering high-quality products. We’re hiring, scaling production, and qualifying our technology, which is already deployed on multiple missions in space.”
Margo de Naray
“Space solar is a critical bottleneck in a rapidly growing industry with an ever-expanding set of missions—from national security to lunar exploration. Solestial is uniquely positioned to serve spacecraft manufacturers with mass production of a lightweight, radiation-hardened solution at lower cost and a fraction of the lead time of the current standard.”
Beckett Jackson, Partner at AE Ventures
“Solestial continues to revolutionize low-cost, lightweight solar power for space. Stan’s continued focus on the technical breadth of Solestial products and Margo’s new addition as a leader of the team are the ingredients to unlock the next phases growth and success. We are also thrilled to welcome new investors and see investors from the seed round returning, collectively signifying what we all know—the market applications for this technology are robust, fast accelerating, and Solestial is ready to meet market demand.”
Mat Costes, Partner at Airbus Ventures
“Our colleagues at Mitsubishi Electric Corporation have been working with Solestial for a number of years to evaluate the potential of Solestial’s technologies. We see tremendous potential in Solestial’s technology and are pleased to deepen the relationship and support their development.”
Komi Matsubara, Executive Officer (Associate), Vice President, Business Innovation at Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
