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SunPower history
SunPower company history timeline
With the help of these funds – as well as financial support from two venture capital firms – SunPower was officially incorporated in April 1985.
SunPower was founded on April 24, 1985, by Richard Swanson, who was a Stanford University professor focused on electrical engineering.
In 1989, Robert Lorenzini invested in the company, became its chairman, and changed the name to SunPower.
Swanson resigned from his academic position at Stanford in 1991, in order to focus on SunPower full-time.
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Starting with an investment of $8 million, Cypress eventually invested about $150 million, acquiring a controlling interest in SunPower in 2002.
The 2005 offering raised $138.6 million in funding.
In 2007, SunPower announced plans to expand its manufacturing facility five-fold and build a second factory.
By 2007, half of Cypress' revenues, or $775 million, was coming from its investment in SunPower.
SunPower acquired Sunray Renewable Energy, a solar panel company based in Italy, for $277 million in 2010, in order to expand in Europe.
In 2012, SunPower founder Richard Swanson retired, though he continued to serve on the SunPower advisory board.
By 2013, SunPower's revenues rebounded and it started expanding its manufacturing facilities again.
In 2014, SunPower raised $220 million from Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, in order to fund customer financing options.
SunPower solar carport solutions are recognized as one of BuildingGreen's top 10 recommended products for 2018.
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In 2019, SunPower announced it was going to spin-off its manufacturing division into a separate business in Singapore named Maxeon Solar Technologies, Ltd.
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By the end of 2021, Maxeon expects to have nearly 6 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, including 3 GW of P-Series in China and 1.9 GW of Maxeon 5 cells, which are the most-efficient commercial solar cells on the market, and which are the core components of the A-Series solar panel.
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In 2021, former CEO Tom Werner retired and Peter Faricy took his place as CEO of SunPower.
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of SunPower, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about SunPower. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at SunPower. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by SunPower. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of SunPower and its employees or that of Zippia.
SunPower may also be known as or be related to SUNPOWER CORP, SunPower, SunPower Corp., SunPower Corporation and Van Nus, Richard.