Solar manufacturing is a capital-intensive business. There’s no way to build the factory of the future without significant support from investors—and for those investors to sign on, they need to understand our vision, believe in our team, and feel confident in our strategy and execution.
Sebastian Neelamkavil, our VP of Finance, knows a thing or two about what those investors are focused on.
Sebastian joined Swift Solar after nearly two decades working in finance in Silicon Valley. He got his start as an investment banking analyst at Credit Suisse, focusing on technology companies. He then joined Silver Lake, a technology focused private equity fund. Over a 12-year stint at Silver Lake, Sebastian helped launch their cleantech division, Silver Lake Kraftwerk, where he focused on scaling clean energy companies. He then joined ArcLight Capital Partners, where he drove infrastructure investments, before jumping to startups.
Now, at Swift Solar, he’s bringing that wealth of financial experience and an investor mindset to our heterojunction (HJT) and perovskite tandem solar technologies.
Sebastian’s value to the team was evident right away. In fact, as soon as he finished onboarding, he stepped up to play a key part in our strategic acquisition of Meyer Burger assets and IP.
He’s a perfect match for Swift Solar, as you’ll see from the conversation below.
What do your responsibilities as Swift Solar’s Vice President of Finance look like? What keeps you busy day to day?
My job is a blend of operations and strategic finance. On the operations side, I’m overseeing the regular transactions we do, making sure they’re properly accounted for and that bills are paid on time, preparing financial statements for board members, and so forth. On the strategic finance side, I’m involved in decisions and dealmaking that move us closer to our ambition of building multiple gigawatt-scale manufacturing facilities—from acquisitions of new assets, like with Meyer Burger, to funding rounds that unlock financing.
You previously worked as an investor seeking out opportunities in energy and technology. How do those experiences guide your approach to leading Swift Solar’s Finance team?
For most of my time as an investor, China was absolutely dominant in solar manufacturing. So we were looking for opportunities in the downstream portion of the solar value chain that took advantage of low-cost Chinese solar. We found those opportunities in areas like procurement, installation, and financing, with companies like Solar City—which eventually became Tesla’s energy division.
Today, the analysis is different. The policy landscape has inverted over the course of two decades. There’s now broad support in Washington for a range of measures to level the playing field for American companies competing against China and building resiliency in critical industries such as energy and defense, from tariffs, to manufacturing incentives, to domestic content requirements. Upstream manufacturing, like what Swift Solar is doing, is far more interesting as a result.
After spending nearly two decades conducting investor diligence and making recommendations to investment committees on the other side of the dealmaking table, I have a pretty good idea of the questions that come up when investors are considering a new opportunity. So I try to anticipate those needs, and position our company to convey that we’re thinking about and mitigating risks.
When you talk with potential investors in Swift Solar, what trends do you see them responding to and shaping decisions around? How is Swift Solar aligned with their focus?
There’s real interest in deploying solar in space, whether to power satellites in low Earth orbit for companies like Amazon and SpaceX, or for more ambitious projects like orbital data centers and power beaming, driven by the AI boom. Google, for example, has approached SpaceX about this, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal earlier in May.
It just so happens that Swift Solar is producing the perfect space-based energy technology. The heterojunction cells we’ll be producing thanks to our Meyer Burger acquisition are particularly resilient in space, and the perovskite tandems we’re developing will enhance that resilience and add even higher efficiency. That makes space a compelling market for us, and it signals to investors that we have multiple paths to generating returns.
Shortly after you came on board at Swift Solar, we threw you right into the deep end—helping to lead the Meyer Berger acquisition. How does that move position our company for the long-term?
When I was interviewing with Joel, I actually mentioned that I had seen Meyer Burger was considering selling some assets. I drew a parallel to how Tesla's first plant was acquired from Toyota and GM, which sold them their NUMMI plant in Fremont at an attractive price, and suggested that Meyer Burger could present a similar opportunity.
Little did I know, Swift and Meyer Burger were already in talks! We actually signed the first of three agreements with Meyer Burger during my very first week, which made for a hectic yet exciting start.
This acquisition is a transformative move. The team we’ve acquired has stood up 150 GW of solar capacity across 40+ solar manufacturing lines in China, Europe, and the US. Bringing that capability and experience in-house will make us a manufacturing powerhouse, to go along with our science and technology leadership.
You’re just over six months into your time at Swift Solar. What more do you hope to accomplish before your one-year mark, and what goals are you setting for yourself beyond that?
As big and exciting as the Meyer Burger acquisition is, it’s really a step toward something even bigger: Opening our first gigawatt-scale factory. This is an ambitious team, so I’ll set an ambitious goal here and say that by the end of my first year, I’d love to land the financing we need to build that first factory. From there, I want to support the team however I can through the factory’s construction and early ramp-up phases. Then it’s rinse-repeat with additional facilities given the market opportunity.
What advice would you give to someone hoping to build a career at the intersection of finance and clean energy?
Sector specialization is important. It’s critical to understand finance in a broad sense, but finding a vertical that you want to learn everything about, and investing the time to become a real expert in that area, is so helpful in opening up new opportunities. So, how do you figure out what to specialize in? Think about where your passions are, and where you think the market may be trending. If you can match that personal interest with long-term potential, you’ll be “tap-dancing to work,” as Warren Buffet likes to say.
What makes you most excited about Swift Solar?
I recently dusted off a research report that I did for my senior year design project for my electrical engineering degree. It was on the design and feasibility of a solar farm. Back then, we had $5/watt module pricing in our report. Today, it’s more than an order of magnitude lower.
Over about two decades, solar has become the cheapest energy source on the market. It’s remarkable. And I believe Swift will unlock an entirely new step change on solar efficiency, driving solar costs even lower.
We’re setting off a runaway train that has real world implications. I’m lucky to be contributing to that.
