Konarka Gets $45M from Total

Wade Roush12/15/08

Lowell, MA-based Konarka, which is developing a process for making solar photovoltaic cells on flexible plastic, said today that it has secured a $45 million investment from Total, a Paris-based international oil and gas conglomerate. Konarka also said it has signed a bilateral R&D agreement with Total, which will become its single largest shareholder (owning 20 percent of the startup). Coincidentally, $45 million is the same amount Konarka raised from a group of private investors for its “Power Plastic” product one year ago.

Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent and editor of Xconomy San Francisco. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/wroush.