Soladigm, manufacturer of smart glass that switches from clear to tinted on demand, announced Tuesday that it took in $30 million in Series C funding from high-profile investors such as General Electric and Khosla Ventures.
The funds, which also came from DBL Investors, NanoDimension and Sigma Partners, will be used to help the Milpitas, Calif.-based firm commercialize its electrochromic glass, which is used in green building projects.
“Soladigm is on a mission to bring high-quality Dynamic Glass to the market at affordable prices to drive widespread market adoption and reduce energy consumption in buildings while improving the wellbeing of occupants,” Soladigm CEO Rao Mulpuri said in a statement.
The company was selected to be one of GE’s 12 Ecomagination Challenge winners, a $200 million competition for next-gen smart grid technology.
Soladigm’s window technology uses electronic signals to change glass from clear to tinted. The value is that tinting allows for better control of heat and glare; with dynamic tint tech, HVAC energy use drops by 25 percent and peak load by 30 percent in commercial buildings, the company says.
The tech was originally developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A similar technology is in the process of development by rival company Sage Electrochromatics.
The funding is important because it helps bring an otherwise novel environmental technology beyond the lab, allowing scale to help it achieve cost-competitiveness. GE says it sees value in applying the technology in its zero energy green homes, green hospitals and smart grid programs.
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