The capital raise was led by Spacecadet Ventures, with participation from Anorak Ventures and Breakthrough Energy Foundation; the company declined to share its valuation.<\/p>\n
Arinna, named for the Hittite god of the sun and pronounced like arena, expects to have its first products being tested on orbit before the end of this year. After qualifying their photovoltaics in space, the company hopes to build a facility that can mass produce the stuff at megawatt scale in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are building qualification panels to send to our first customers that will demonstrate that these two dimensional photovoltaics have the efficiency and the durability to survive space,\u201d Shearer said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to prove that out at a larger scale over this next year, and in doing so, we are refining the processes necessary to make every single layer of our photovoltaic to produce these in a roll to roll fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arinna builds solar cells specifically for spacecraft. In the pre-SpaceX world when most satellites were bespoke, spacecraft used expensive but hardy solar panels made of rare-earth elements. With mass manufactured satellites, cheaper silicon panels are being used, but they degrade more quickly due to cosmic radiation.<\/p>\n
Instead, Arinna\u2019s technology is based on a new material \u2014 transition metal dichalcogenides, or TMDs, atomically thin semiconductors that have only been developed in recent decades. Arinna\u2019s ultrathin solar technology allows for extremely flexible cells that the company claims are cheaper and more durable than legacy space solar panels.<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of solar development over the years are eking out slight percentage improvements on well-known and existing technology,\u201d Ben Gaddy, a materials scientist and senior director at Breakthrough Energy, told TechCrunch. \u201cThis is a totally different class of materials.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Arinna_cropped.png\")
A rendering of a space data center powered by arinna\u2019s Solar PanelsImage Credits:Arinna<\/p>\n
Nazif and Shearer met at Stanford while pursuing their doctoral research. Nazif\u2019s work was in materials that could also be used to create photovoltaic cells as capable as traditional semiconductors, while Shearer developed techniques to produce those cells at scale. \u201dKoosha was very much the architect, and I am construction,\u201d Shearer joked.<\/p>\n
The company expects its photovoltaics will be far more flexible than traditional panels and 32% more efficient. Arinna\u2019s technology also won\u2019t require protective coverings, will last 15 years on orbit, and can be delivered within weeks, Shearer said.<\/p>\n
These would be major upgrades over the current technology, as long as the company gets through its orbit test campaign this year without any surprises and can deliver on its mass manufacturing plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve seen from all of the space companies we\u2019ve invested in is that power is a barrier, a bottleneck,\u201d Wiz Khuzai, a general partner at Spacecadet Ventures who led the round, told TechCrunch. \u201c[Arinna] are going to be the unlock for the next generation of power needs in space.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The space ambitions of nation states and billionaires alike demand better sources of power, and a new startup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[245792,28,158,186,245793,1870],"class_list":{"0":"post-552894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-arinna","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-entrepreneurship","11":"tag-exclusive","12":"tag-seed-rounds","13":"tag-solar-energy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}