SOLARCYCLE, a technology-driven recycling company focused on mass-producing sustainable materials for the solar industry, announced today that it has raised $30 million in Series A funding, bringing the company’s total funding to $37 million since its inception a year ago.
Fifth Wall, the largest asset manager focused on improving, future-proofing, and decarbonizing the built world, and HG Ventures, The Heritage Group’s corporate venture arm, led the round.
Prologis Ventures, as well as existing investors Urban Innovation Fund and Closed Loop Partners, participated in the round. The announcement follows the company’s initial $6.6M seed round in May 2022.
SOLARCYCLE was founded in 2022 by experts in panel manufacturing, advanced recycling, and climate technology to create a more sustainable, domestic supply chain for the solar industry. Solar adoption is expected to accelerate over the next decade, with installations increasing from 150 GWp in 2021 to 650 GWp per year in 2030.
SOLARCYCLE has developed proprietary technology that can cost-effectively return more than 95% of all valuable materials, such as aluminum, glass, copper, silver, and silicon, back into the solar value chain, thereby assisting in the creation of a sustainable and scalable solar industry.
The funding announcement comes after SOLARCYCLE opened their first advanced-technology solar recycling facility in Odessa, Texas, inked customer partnerships with major US solar companies like Sunrun, Silicon Ranch, DEPCOM Power, SOLV Energy, NovaSource, Greentech Renewables, and Forum Energy Partners, and assembled a world-class management team with experience scaling companies like Amazon, SunPower, and Nextracker.
SOLARCYCLE is a technology-driven platform designed to maximize solar sustainability by offering solar asset owners a low-cost, eco-friendly, comprehensive process for recycling retiring solar panels and technologies and repurposing them for new uses.
The company’s proprietary technology allows it to extract 95% of a solar panel’s valuable metals, such as silver, silicon, copper and aluminum, and to recycle or repurpose panels currently in use. Experts in solar technology, recycling and sustainability founded SOLARCYCLE in 2022 to accelerate the circular economy for solar and renewables.
