GigaOM Pro

Well, the frozen greentech IPO market showed a glimmer of thawing this morning when solar microinverter company, Enphase Energy, managed to sell just under $9 million shares at $6 to raise about $54 million. The $6 dollar price was almost half the $10-12 range that the company had wanted, though an underwriter told Reuters that Enphase wound up selling almost 2 million more shares than it had initially targeted. It’s the first IPO in the solar sector since 2010 and a successful IPO from BrightSource in the next month would give investors further hope that capital markets are loosening. It’s been a long slog for those companies in need of a cash infusion and waiting to go public, though this would clearly be less of an issue if more growth stage money were available from VC and private equity firms. Which makes me wonder how Silver Lake Kraftwerk is doing in raising its $1.25 billion energy fund.