This Series B financing led by Harris & Harris Group, Inc., includes investment from existing investors Apax Partners, ARCH Venture Partners, Sevin Rosen Funds and Triton Ventures.

Innovalight (Santa Clara, Calif.) plans to employ this additional capital to accelerate development of low cost, lightweight solar cells using a proprietary silicon ink-based technology.

Over 90 percent of solar energy modules are made from crystalline silicon wafers that are costly to produce and in critical short supply because of competing demand from the semiconductor industry.

"Today, solar energy represents a paltry two-hundredths of one percent of the total global electrical energy generated because current production methods are still too expensive," said Conrad Burke, president and chief executive. "Innovalight is developing a technology that could ultimately reduce the cost of producing solar-generated electricity tenfold."