In a bid to build on its commercial team and scale up its ‘demonstrator’ product manufacturing, MTI Partners has completed a £650,000 investment round in Oxford Photovoltaics (OPV), an Oxford University spin-out Materials/Cleantech company developing solid-state dye sensitized solar cells for the building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) sector.

The financing was led by MTI through the UMIP Premier Fund (UPF) alongside investment from Parkwalk EIS Technology Fund 1, the World Gold Council and a number of Angel investors.

Kevin Arthur, Chief Executive Officer of OPV said, “It’s very exciting to have the opportunity to demonstrate the unique aesthetic benefits of our transparent glass based screen printable photovoltaic technology, and its inherent simplicity of production and low manufacturing cost.

We believe that this technology has the potential to deliver a paradigm-shift in the way that solar energy solutions are deployed in the future. We are delighted to have closed this investment round and appreciate our investors’ confidence in the founding team and our technology.”

David Ward, Managing Partner and Head of Cleantech investing at MTI said, “We’ve been analysing the photovoltaics sector for some considerable time but had yet to get comfortable with either big plays in generation that are at the whim of Governmental subsidy, or organic PV companies that continue to have headwinds in terms of a path to commercially viable flexible electronics manufacturing. OPV is unusual in that it pairs world class science with a founder team that is very focused on execution and growing the business in a pragmatic way that gives the best chance of commercial success.”