6N Silicon raises $6 million
Yet another reason why we should be forming a cleantech cluster in the Toronto area. Mississauga-based 6N Silicon Inc. announced today that it has raised $6 million in venture capital financing through a round led by Ventures West and Yaletown Venture Partners. The company, founded in 2006 by Scott Nichol, has developed a proprietary process for purifying inexpensive, readily available metallurgical grade silicon into solar grade silicon. The company believes its low-cost process can help clear the silicon bottleneck for PV manufacturers. “Ontario and Canada have the opportunity to develop a domestic solar industry that includes the entire manufacturing value chain and 6N’s technology will play a part in that,” said Nichol in a statement.
You may recall that 6N is also receiving funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada to develop a pilot manufacturing line for its process. SDTC is contributing $4 million to this project.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca