Solyndra
Cleantech/solarUSA
New to Unitard
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $1 BillionToday
~-100%
from peak
- 🦄Became a unicorn2008
- 📈Peak valuation$1 Billion ’10
- 💔Became a UnitardSep 2011
- 💸Last valuationWiped out
🔥 Raised & burned
$1.54B
Total raised
$659K/day
Burned · 6.4y alive
Funding: Forbes / Wikipedia / CRS
Current status
Chapter 11 (Sept 2011)
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2005–2011The key moments.
May 2005
May 2005
Founded in Fremont
Chris Gronet bets on cylindrical thin-film tubes that sidestep expensive silicon entirely.
Wikipedia
2008
2008
Joins the unicorn club
Venture investors pile in as spiking polysilicon prices make the silicon-free tubes look like the future — over $1B in private capital in all.
Forbes
Sep 2009
Sep 2009
A $535M federal loan guarantee
Solyndra lands the first loan guarantee of the stimulus era and becomes Washington's green-jobs showcase.
Wikipedia
2010
2010
The peak: a $1B flagship — Obama visits$1B
The President tours the gleaming new Fremont fab in May; the planned IPO is shelved the next month after auditors raise going-concern doubts.
Reuters
2011
2011
Cheap silicon panels crush the edge
Plunging conventional-panel prices erase the whole point of the tubes; losses mount with no cheap fix.
Wikipedia
Sep 6 ’11
Sep 6 ’11
Chapter 11 — joins the Unitard Club 💔
Operations halt and roughly 1,100 workers lose their jobs; a $1.5B bet — $535M of it taxpayer-backed — is wiped out.
Reuters
Sep 2011
Sep 2011
The FBI raids headquarters
Agents search the Fremont offices two days after the filing; congressional hearings turn Solyndra into shorthand for the clean-energy subsidy fight.
Reuters
$1Bof peak value erased · 6 years
How it happened
Solyndra made distinctive cylindrical solar panels and raised over $1B in private capital plus a $535M federal loan guarantee. Plunging conventional solar prices destroyed its cost advantage. Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 in September 2011, becoming a political flashpoint over clean-energy subsidies.
Source: Raised >$1B private + $535M DOE loan
Where they went
- Chris GronetFounder & CEOVice President, Chief Architect Emerging Products, ICAPS Business Unit, SPG at Applied Materials
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.
