Sofab Inks raises $6M and says it has cleared a major technical hurdle for perovskite solar, claiming to have solved what it sees as the primary barrier to mass adoption: industrial-scale reliability. The funding round, led by strategic investor Cloudberry Ventures, is intended to accelerate production and expand applications into automotive, space and IoT.
A funding round and advanced customer commitments
The $6 million raise was announced on July 21, 2026, in Louisville, Kentucky. Cloudberry Ventures, led by founder Mahir Sahin, is the lead investor and cites Sofab Inks’ ability to address “a critical technical bottleneck” and scale production to meet growing demand—particularly from data centers and AI infrastructure—as the rationale for the investment. The company also says it has achieved “90% market engagement,” though it did not clarify the exact nature of that engagement in its statement.
A reliability breakthrough: replacing C60
Sofab Inks says the main source of voltage loss and in-service failure in perovskite cells stems from a fullerene-based layer (C60). The startup replaces that material with metal-oxide nanoparticles that, it claims, provide six to ten times stronger anchoring than C60 and remain stable at real module scales. That substitution is said to improve module robustness while maintaining high performance.
Measured performance and scaling plans
Sofab reports 22.3% efficiency on single-junction modules at a 30‑centimeter scale, and it plans to scale production toward commercial-format panels of 1 × 2 meters. To manage the volume increase—described internally as a “1× to 100×” jump—CEO and cofounder Blake Martin says the company will triple its engineering staff.
Opportunities beyond conventional solar
The company highlights that perovskite’s thin films and low-temperature processing allow deposition on flexible and heat-sensitive substrates, enabling use cases silicon struggles to serve: curved vehicle surfaces, lightweight satellite panels and compact power supplies for IoT devices. Sofab positions its material solution as a key enabler for large-scale perovskite–silicon tandem cells.
What this means for the market
By closing fresh funding and announcing a targeted technical fix to a known weak link in perovskite cells, Sofab Inks is positioning itself as a materials supplier for the emerging perovskite solar value chain.
