Serious Materials raises $60 million

Chris Caceres · September 23, 2009 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/ac7

Sunnyvale green tech company gets serious investment to expand and develop new products

Serious Materials, a manufacturer of green building materials, has raised $60 million in Series C funding. The new round was led by Mesirow Financial Capital, Cheyenne, and Saints Capital. Returning once again is Navitas, which initially invested in Serious Materials back in 2005. With this latest round, Serious Materials has raised more than $120 million.

The Sunnyvale, Ca.- based startup develops and manufactures several different green building materials including commercial glass and drywalls. It's focus is to produce materials which save people heating and other energy costs. So the idea is once you install for example, a Serious Materials-made window, your house will maintain a better temperature level and reduce heating and cooling costs, by what it says could be up to 50%.

The company has drawn some attention in the Obama Administration's effort to promote the adoption of green technologies.

It's materials support energy efficiency funding programs as outlined under The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARPA). President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden commended the company for its work and its role in creating American green manufacturing jobs.

Although it wouldn't share its new valuation, Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials spoke to us about whether or not the company was profitable yet. He shared, "Our products are profitable, however we are still spending on growth and R & D that swamp out that profit today. Though we can control that by slowing down on growth, and targeting profitability. But that has not been a focus to date, where growth is."

This transaction represents one of the largest US venture capital deals year-to-date in 2009 and the largest clean-tech deal in the Energy Efficiency category, according to Ernst & Young LLP analysis based on data from Dow Jones VentureSource.

The company said it will use the capital to fund its next stage of growth as well as bring new products to the market.

Here's an interview VatorNews did with Surace last year. Saving a billion tons of emission a year.

Chris Caceres

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Serious Materials, Inc.

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on August 22, 2007

Serious Materials develops and manufactures sustainable green building materials that dramatically reduce the impact of the 'built environment' on the climate. Our corporate mission is to address 1 Billion Tons of CO2 reduction annually through the use of our technologies.

Voted #1 at Cleantech Venture Forum XII and winner of the first Aspen Institute award for innovation in Corporate Energy Conservation, the company has also been recognized by TIME/CNN, Fortune, Business Week, AlwaysOn and more as one of the most promising green companies.

We aim for breakthroughs in product performance, without requiring changes in customer behavior or in how products are used - thus speeding market adoption.

Examples include:

EcoRock^TM, a green replacement for standard drywall (coming in late 2008), uses virtually zero energy in its core production, resulting in zero CO2 emissions. The 35 billion square feet of drywall produced in the U.S and Canada each year represent a $6 billion dollar market opportunity.
ThermaProof super-insulating windows reduce heating and cooling energy use and emissions by 20-40%. Windows are a $20 billion dollar market in the U.S.
QuietRock soundproof drywall reduces material use, enhances livability, and supports denser, more sustainable urban construction.

We currently manufacture products in Sunnyvale, California, Newark, California, Chicao, IL, Vandergrift, PA, and Boulder, Colorado, . The company is driving to create thousands of cleantech jobs here in the U.S. Products are widely available through building products dealers in the U.S. and Canada.

Kevin Surace