The space ambitions of nation states and billionaires alike demand better sources of power, and a new startup founded by two Stanford PhDs may have the answer.
Arinna, founded by CEO Koosha Nazif and CTO Alex Shearer, said Wednesday that it had raised a $4 million seed round to build ultrathin solar panels from a brand new material developed during their doctoral research.
The capital raise was led by Spacecadet Ventures, with participation from Anorak Ventures and Breakthrough Energy Foundation; the company declined to share its valuation.
Arinna, named for the Hittite god of the sun and pronounced like arena, expects to have its first products being tested on orbit before the end of this year. After qualifying their photovoltaics in space, the company hopes to build a facility that can mass produce the stuff at megawatt scale in 2028.
“We are building qualification panels to send to our first customers that will demonstrate that these two dimensional photovoltaics have the efficiency and the durability to survive space,” Shearer said. “We’re going to prove that out at a larger scale over this next year, and in doing so, we are refining the processes necessary to make every single layer of our photovoltaic to produce these in a roll to roll fashion.”
Arinna builds solar cells specifically for spacecraft. In the pre-SpaceX world when most satellites were bespoke, spacecraft used expensive but hardy solar panels made of rare-earth elements. With mass manufactured satellites, cheaper silicon panels are being used, but they degrade more quickly due to cosmic radiation.
Instead, Arinna’s technology is based on a new material — transition metal dichalcogenides, or TMDs, atomically thin semiconductors that have only been developed in recent decades. Arinna’s ultrathin solar technology allows for extremely flexible cells that the company claims are cheaper and more durable than legacy space solar panels.
“A lot of solar development over the years are eking out slight percentage improvements on well-known and existing technology,” Ben Gaddy, a materials scientist and senior director at Breakthrough Energy, told TechCrunch. “This is a totally different class of materials.”
Nazif and Shearer met at Stanford while pursuing their doctoral research. Nazif’s work was in materials that could also be used to create photovoltaic cells as capable as traditional semiconductors, while Shearer developed techniques to produce those cells at scale. ”Koosha was very much the architect, and I am construction,” Shearer joked.
The company expects its photovoltaics will be far more flexible than traditional panels and 32% more efficient. Arinna’s technology also won’t require protective coverings, will last 15 years on orbit, and can be delivered within weeks, Shearer said.
These would be major upgrades over the current technology, as long as the company gets through its orbit test campaign this year without any surprises and can deliver on its mass manufacturing plans.
“What I’ve seen from all of the space companies we’ve invested in is that power is a barrier, a bottleneck,” Wiz Khuzai, a general partner at Spacecadet Ventures who led the round, told TechCrunch. “[Arinna] are going to be the unlock for the next generation of power needs in space.”