California's SolFocus, founded less than two years ago, today announced a first move into dealmaking, acquiring Spain's Inspira, a maker of solar tracking equipment.

Nancy Hartsoch, vice president of marketing at SolFocus, said the company didn't have any other deals in the works, but told Cleantech.com, "we'll be very aggressive about how to go about and provide vertical integration, and to be successful in the market."

"We certainly are going to be looking at other opportunities to gain solar DNA," she said.

Backed by New Enterprise Associates, SolFocus closed on $32 million in series A funding in October 2006.

Hartosh said the company would probably do a B round later this year.

SolFocus, which manufactures concentrator photovoltaic systems, met up with Inspira through their respective work on Spain's Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems program, known as ISFOC (see Cleantech.com's Striking up the intermediate band).

SolFocus, a major customer of Inspira, is working on a 500 kW installation as part of the government program.

It will be SolFocus' first commercial project, expected to be installed later this year, and completed in early 2008.

Contracts have also been awarded on the project to Isofotón of Spain and Concentrix of Germany.

Inspira, a small, privately owned company with less than 10 employees, is expected to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of SolFocus, and will continue to market products under its own name.

SolFocus plans to use its global supply chain management and low-cost manufacturing facilities to help Inspira drive down the cost of its solar trackers.

"We believe this deal, which will provide high-accuracy trackers at a reasonable cost, will be a key element in enabling the anticipated growth of the solar industry," said Ignacio Luque-Heredia, founder of Inspira.

Solar trackers are used to orient flat-plate and concentrated photovoltaic panels toward the sun.

"From an industry standpoint, this move is a major step forward in reducing the cost of CPV and ultimately achieving grid parity for solar," said SolFocus CEO Gary Conley.

SolFocus' Hartsoch said Europe is very important market for the company.

"You're dealing with fairly large mounted systems," she said, so the company is really focused in areas where you have very high sun contact, like in southern Europe and the Mediterranean.

She said the company looks at the U.S. as a sleeping giant.

SolFocus, which has a volume manufacturing agreement with Moser Baer India, has pilot production underway in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Last year, the company said the California plant was expected to produce over 4,000 panels for extensive reliability and field testing.

The company also said other sites being considered for a large manufacturing facility that would serve the North American market.

SolFocus plans to begin selling its products for large-scale commercial field application later this year.

It hasn't announced any more orders, but Hartsoch said the company will have a couple of other smaller test sites this year and that it does have some prospective orders in Europe and the States.

"2008 will be our first real commercialization year," Hartsoch said.

SolFocus, which only had 15 employees in October and now has about 60, develops and markets its CPV systems for industrial and utility-scale applications.

Inspira, founded in 1995, designs and markets pedestal trackers to mount flat plate photovoltaic and CPV systems.