Noak, a new spin-off of the Belgian research centre imec and Hasselt University (UHasselt), has raised €5m (about $5.6m) in a seed round. imec announced the financing on 30 October 2026.
The Helios Foundation, Nuhma and V2HFin invested. No lead investor was named, and the company did not disclose a valuation. The trade site SolarBytes also reported the round and the same three investors on 30 October.
“With Noak, we now have the opportunity to translate that expertise into industrial manufacturing.”Jef Poortmans, Program Director PV, imec, and R&D Coordinator, EnergyVille
What Noak makes
Noak is developing tandem solar cells that stack a layer of perovskite, a class of crystal material, on top of a conventional silicon cell. The two layers capture different parts of the light spectrum. Noak says the approach can reach 30–35% efficiency, compared with a practical limit of about 27–28% for standard silicon cells.
The technology is built on intellectual property from imec and UHasselt. It combines a proprietary perovskite layer stack, made with proprietary chemistries and deposition methods designed to scale, with a 3D woven back-contact foil. The foil moves the electrical connections to the back of the cell, which removes metal lines from the front, cuts shading losses and uses less metal.
According to imec, the cells can be split into smaller sub-cells wired in series and parallel. They are also designed to be taken apart at the end of their life, with layers that can be separated on demand, and partners are working towards certified recycled metals. The technology has been tested outdoors for five years at more than ten sites on three continents.
What the money is for
Noak said the money will speed up development at EnergyVille, the energy research hub in Genk where the company is based, and prepare partnerships for manufacturing at gigawatt scale.
Chief executive Geert Palmers said the company wants to build its supply chain through industrial partners around the world without relying on what he described as vulnerable dependencies on dominant suppliers of critical materials.
From the lab to the factory
Noak's partners include imec, UHasselt, EnergyVille and IUMAT, the materials institute that UHasselt and imec run together. imec has worked on photovoltaics for many years, and Jef Poortmans, who leads its solar programme, said Noak gives that research a route into industrial production.
Marlies Van Bael, director of IUMAT, said Noak is the result of years of research that began long before a spin-off was planned. imec said the next phase of work will focus on proving that the cells keep performing over the long term at scale, building on the outdoor testing that imec and UHasselt have already carried out.
imec did not say when Noak was founded or how many people it employs, and it did not name founders other than the chief executive. The company has not disclosed any earlier funding. Its website gives its address as Thor Park in Genk, and says the outdoor tests ran at 11 sites.
Company website: noak.io