Sunfolding

Sunfolding was a venture-capital-funded solar startup founded by Leila Madrone in 2012 that developed a novel pneumatic solar tracker system using airbags instead of motors.¹²⁴⁵ The company raised a $32 million financing round in 2019 from G2VP and Macquarie Group, and was seed-funded by Y Combinator in 2017.⁴ Sunfolding shut down in 2023 after facing manufacturing challenges, supply chain disruptions, and an inability to raise additional funding.¹²⁴⁵¹⁶

Timeline

Money raised

Sunfolding was seed-funded by Y Combinator in 2017.⁴ Sunfolding raised a $32 million financing round in 2019 from G2VP and Macquarie Group.⁴ Other investors in the firm included Citylight Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Elemental Excelerator, according to Crunchbase.⁴ Sunfolding filed a Form D with the SEC on December 27, 2022, indicating a total offering amount of $41,400,000.¹⁸

Investors named in the sources: Y Combinator⁴, G2VP⁴, Macquarie Group⁴, Citylight Capital⁴, Alumni Ventures⁴, Elemental Excelerator⁴.

What happened

Sunfolding was founded by Leila Madrone in 2012 with the idea of building a solar tracker using pneumatic airbags instead of motors and torque tubes.²⁴⁵ The basic idea was to apply high-volume manufacturing to the physics of a solar field to lower costs.²⁵ Sunfolding's tracker design used compressed air in industrial airbags to move solar panels, reducing the number of structural components to three or four compared to dozens in traditional trackers.²⁵ In 2015, Sunfolding deployed a 300-kilowatt field test at PV Evolution Labs in Davis, California.²⁵ The Davis project revealed flaws in the technology, forcing a complete redesign.²⁵

Sunfolding spent the next few years iterating on the design and trying to keep pace with the rapidly declining cost of solar.²⁵ The company gradually scaled from sub-one megawatt demonstration projects to larger installations of nearly ten megawatts.⁵ Sunfolding built bankability through third-party validation and secured letters of intent from big customers.⁵ Sunfolding raised its Series A round in 2017.⁵ In 2019, Sunfolding raised a $32 million financing round from G2VP and Macquarie Group.⁴

After the Series B, Sunfolding noticed issues at some of its sites related to manufacturing and supply chain processes.⁵ At the start of 2020, Sunfolding paused operations to implement better processes and testing, expecting the pause to last six months.⁵ The COVID-19 pandemic extended the pause to nearly two years due to supply chain disruptions and dramatic shifts in material costs, especially steel.⁵ Sunfolding's U.S.-based manufacturers faced material costs three times higher than overseas competitors, forcing the company to set up an international supply chain during the pandemic.⁵ Sunfolding pivoted its pitch to focus on its technology's performance on undulating terrain, which saved customers from grading land flat.⁵

By 2022, Sunfolding resumed customer projects and faced investor pressure to take on a utility-scale project to prove scale.⁵ Sunfolding decided to commit to a utility-scale project on flat land despite expecting to lose money on it.⁵ In early 2023, an earthquake in Turkey disrupted the supply chain for a critical polymer used in Sunfolding's technology.⁵ The polymer had been sourced from DuPont, but corporate changes and the earthquake left Sunfolding at the bottom of priority lists for limited supply.⁵ For six months, Sunfolding's supply chain team had to explain delays to customers on the utility-scale project.⁵

Sunfolding tried to raise more money but concluded that existing investors were tapped out and no new investors would step in.⁵ Sunfolding announced it was shutting down in 2023.^1234516 CEO Glen Davis wrapped up his tenure at the company in October 2023.⁴ Most of the executive staff listed on Sunfolding's leadership page were no longer with the company, according to their LinkedIn profiles.⁴ At one time, Sunfolding had 44 employees, according to a description on Y Combinator's site that categorizes the company as inactive.⁴

A former employee cited manufacturing challenges and a lack of solar-project experience as key reasons for the company's failure.⁴ Sunfolding's site listed several dozen operational deployments and about a dozen projects in planning or construction.⁴ The global solar industry was installing more than 1 gigawatt of solar every day in 2023, but Sunfolding could not survive.⁴ Sunfolding's board members included Rewiring America founder Saul Griffith, Bruce Sohn, Veery Maxwell, and Ben Kortlang.⁴ A lawsuit was filed in 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas by Joseph Mayo against Campos EPC, LLC, Pearce Services, LLC, CS Energy, LLC, and Sunfolding, Inc.¹²

Legal outcomes

• filedA lawsuit was filed in 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas by Joseph Mayo against Campos EPC, LLC, Pearce Services, LLC, CS Energy, LLC, and Sunfolding, Inc.¹²

Where the founders are now

Leila Madrone is the founder and former chief technology officer of Sunfolding.⁵ Madrone said the decision to close Sunfolding was heartbreaking: "It was like the worst thing I'd ever imagined happening to this company."⁵ Madrone believes founders need to look beyond traditional venture capital for resources and build coalitions that include corporate partnerships and government support.⁵ Madrone said, "The ecosystem has to stop pushing founders toward VC immediately. The current work I'm doing is thinking about what are all these different resources and tools you can use outside of VC."⁵

Lessons, as others put them

"I think that the real issue for a lot of climate hardware, hard tech founders is how to get to a point where you can sell things that will pay for your company. It’s very simple."Leila Madrone²⁵

Sources

1. Innovative solar tracker startup Sunfolding has folded, Canary Media, Dec 8, 202
2. What really happened at Sunfolding, Latitude Media, 2025-02-26
3. How supply chain chaos sank Sunfolding, Apple Podcasts, Feb 26, 20
4. Innovative solar tracker startup Sunfolding has folded, Yahoo News, Dec 8, 202
5. A pandemic, an earthquake — and the end of Sunfolding, Latitude Media, 2025-03-03
12. Mayo v. Campos EPC, LLC et al : 4:2024cv03094, dockets.justia.com
16. 5 cleantech startups that didn't survive to see 2024, Canary Media, Jan 5, 202
18. SEC Form D filing, Sunfolding, Inc., SEC EDGAR, 2022-12-27

How this case file was put together

Every statement on this page carries a numbered note, and every note points to a court record, a regulatory filing or a named publication in the list of sources. Each statement was checked against the text of the sources it cites before it was published: a figure, a date or a name the cited source does not contain was cut rather than kept. Allegations are shown as allegations, with their status at the time of the source (filed, charged, convicted, pleaded, settled, dismissed or pending). Quoted lessons are the words of the person or publication named with them, copied from the cited source; nothing here is our own opinion of why the company failed.

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