Regina Garcia
A venture capital partnership between Boeing and AE Industrial Partners participated in a recent seed funding round for Solestial, which is developing solar panel technology designed to power satellites.
The investment marks AEI HorizonX’s maiden outlay in its second venture fund that backs startup companies in the space, mobility, digital enterprise, security, networking and sustainability areas, the private equity firm said Wednesday.
Tempe, Arizona-headquartered Solestial applies a radiation-hardening approach to reduce the degradation risk for space-based silicon solar cells.
To date, the startup has received more than $2.5 million in Small Business Innovation Research grants from multiple government agencies such as NASA and the National Science Foundation. with NASA, NSF, and other government agencies.
Solestial’s seed fundraising round raised $10 million and involved participation from Airbus Ventures, GPVC, Stellar Ventures and Industrious Ventures.
