Why We Invested In Photora

At Pace Ventures, we invest in bold founders transforming industries from the inside out. That's why we're excited to announce our investment in Photara, a company pioneering a game-changing manufacturing process to remove expensive metals from solar panels and accelerate the global energy transition.

The Opportunity: Solar's Silver Bottleneck

Through our thesis on critical metals, we discovered that the solar industry has become one of the largest consumers of silver globally. Last year, 15% of the world's silver supply was consumed in solar cell manufacturing. With solar demand projected to grow exponentially in the coming years, this dependency creates a fundamental bottleneck that threatens the industry's ability to scale.

The irony is striking: over the past 30 years, incredible innovation has made solar panels remarkably affordable by dramatically reducing the cost of silicon semiconductors—once the primary expense in photovoltaic manufacturing. But as silicon costs plummeted, a new constraint emerged. Silver is the top issue for PV manufacturers and accounts for 10 to 20% of a solar module's bill of materials, making it the second-largest cost component and 100x more expensive than other base metals.

Silver serves a critical function in what's called the "contacting" layer—the material that collects electricity from individual cells and channels it to the inverter. Applied as a paste printed onto cells in fine lines, silver's exceptional conductivity has made it indispensable. Yet this dependency now represents a $13 billion market opportunity for whoever can solve it, with the potential to expand manufacturing margins by up to 20%.

The challenge isn't just cost—it's scalability. Solar manufacturing demands incredible precision, speed (processing >3,000 wafers per hour), and reliability. Many have attempted to replace silver with cheaper base metals, but none have developed solutions that can meet these demanding industrial requirements at scale.

Photara's Solution: a Breakthrough Metallization Technology

Photara has cracked the code that has eluded the industry for decades. Their proprietary metallization process replaces silver with abundant metals, cutting silver usage by more than 85% while actually improving cell efficiency. What sets them apart isn't just the technology—it's their approach.

Rather than starting with a solution in search of a problem, the Photara team began with deep customer engagement, designing their process specifically to meet the exacting demands of high-volume solar manufacturing. Their breakthrough combines:

• Scalable Manufacturing: A process designed from day one to integrate seamlessly with existing production lines

• Superior Performance: Not just cost reduction, but actual efficiency improvements in the final solar cells

• Industry Validation: Early customer engagement with the world’s top solar manufacturers demonstrates the large market demand.

The technology can offer a solution that is both economically compelling and technically robust enough for global deployment.

The Team: Founder-Market Fit at Its Finest

As always, our conviction in Photara is rooted in an exceptional founding team.

Brian Hardin brings decades of solar industry expertise with a PhD in Chemistry from Stanford. He's been at the frontier of photovoltaic metallization research, and previously built and successfully exited a solar company (PLANT PV) to a major chemicals group. His deep understanding of both the technical challenges and customer needs is invaluable.

Max L'Etoile complements Brian's domain expertise with exceptional engineering talent and operational excellence. Initially joining as a founding engineer, Max stepped up to become co-founder and CTO, leading the product design and manufacturing scale-up. His background in laser tool manufacturing brings the precision engineering mindset essential for high-volume production.

What struck us most was their partnership dynamic, two complementary skill sets united by shared ambition and mutual respect. Their customer-first approach and relentless execution give us confidence that they can deliver on this massive opportunity. They are also very hard-working and experienced in tool design. I knew they were not kidding when Brian told me one of his first purchases in the lab was a CNC Machine, and everyone in the company is trained to operate it.

Photara's Impact: Unlocking Solar's Full Potential

Photara's technology doesn't just reduce costs—it fundamentally changes what's possible with solar energy. By making panels significantly cheaper, we move closer to a world where solar can be deployed at massive overcapacity, providing abundant clean energy even when the sun doesn't shine.

This opens the door to energy-intensive processes that were previously uneconomical: synthetic fuels, green hydrogen production, and energy-demanding chemical reactions essential for modern life. When solar becomes truly abundant and cheap, it transforms not just electricity generation but entire industrial processes.

Our Co-Investors

We're proud to join Photara's $8M Seed round co-led by Voyager Ventures and Kibo Invest, alongside Ahren Innovation Capital, WovenEarth Ventures, and continued support from Prelude Ventures and Breakthrough Energy Fellows. This international syndicate reflects solar's global nature and Photara's ambition to scale worldwide.