The investment firm of John Doerr, the billionaire chairman of Kleiner Perkins, will put $10 million into Complete Solaria, the solar company that’s merging with the blank-check vehicle started by Tidjane Thiam, a former CEO at Credit Suisse Group AG.
The investment from Doerr’s firm, Foris Ventures, into the Fremont, Calif.-based company could be announced as soon as Monday, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.
Doerr is worth $5.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, and was an early investor in Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Twitter Inc. and other technology companies.
Last October, Freedom Acquisition I Corp., a special purpose acquisition company set up by Thiam, agreed to combine with solar startup Complete Solaria. Complete Solar Solution Inc. and Solaria merged into Complete Solaria as part of the deal, which is expected to close in the first half.
Foris’ $10 million investment adds to other financial backing of the deal, including $14.2 million from T.J. Rodgers, the former chief executive officer of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. It’s a vote of support for a deal happening during a tough time in the market for SPACs that are getting little interest from investors.
In February, the solar company named Brian Wuebbels as its next chief financial officer.
