Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?

As an expert on silicon and solar, the technology is doomed- here&#x27;s why:<p>•It is totally possible, in terms of the physics, to do what they&#x27;re proposing. All you have to do is take your ingot or boule of FZ or Cz Silicon, draw a vacuum on it, backfill it with hydrogen, and run your ion implantation head over it. Like a Durandal bomb, the upper surface is relatively undisturbed but a cutting effect occurs beneath the surface. Pop, off comes your perfect and thin wafer.<p>•This idea has been proposed before.<p>•There&#x27;s nothing fundamentally wrong with a 3 micron thick silicon wafer. It takes some different processing steps to trap the light, but you can still make a decent solar cell out of it. It&#x27;s not better than a 400 micron wafer in terms of efficiency, but not much worse. Also, by it being so thin, it&#x27;s flexible and not so darn brittle. That reduces breakage but also makes handling a little more challenging.<p>•The idea fails when you consider the economics. First consider the market you&#x27;re trying to break into- there&#x27;s a huge glut of silicon wafer manufacturing capacity in the industry. Silicon manufacture is going gang busters, so it&#x27;s not a commodity that&#x27;s expensive to begin with. Solyndra bet on silicon prices staying high and that, more than any other reason, is why they failed. This is the same bet with a different topology.<p>•Bill Nye should perform a little math problem- consider the amount of electricity and hydrogen gas necessary to perform a cleave, 100% efficient, 100% yield, and multiply these quantities by their respective commodity costs. You will end up with a number in excess of the cost of a 500 micron wafer, or perilously close to one.<p>•I did the math five years ago and it made no sense then, when silicon wafers sold for over twice as much. Just because the existing technology is materially wasteful (it definitely is, generating a lot of kerf and going through a lot of expensive wiresaw blades and polishing processes) doesn&#x27;t mean that it&#x27;s economically wasteful.<p>It&#x27;s not too late to pivot- I&#x27;m sure he&#x27;ll have no difficulty raising the money in spite of these shortcomings. I&#x27;d be more than happy to steer this company in the right direction, contributing IP that actually delivers on these promises. All it takes is an e-mail.

The stock market in general is moving in a strange direction in the past decade.<p>•First the dividends became the thing of the past as the companies argued that stock buybacks are more tax-efficient. The general public accepted it.<p>•Then the earnings per share disappeared and loss per share became standard. The argumentation was that it&#x27;s better to invest in growth today and figure out profitability &quot;some other day&quot;. The public ate it with not much questioning.<p>•Then it was the voting rights&#x27; turn to go with IPOs like SNAP. It raised some concerns (like being excluded from the S&amp;P 500), but didn&#x27;t stop people from investing either.<p>So if the general public keeps on bringing the money in despite the worsening conditions, it makes sense that someone would come up with even a bolder plan for turning this condition into their personal profit.<p>I blame the agency problem [1]. Too many investment decisions these days are made by someone investing someone else&#x27;s money and their interests could be different from simply maximizing the returns and too many people blindly trust their money to be managed by someone else without fully understanding the underlying processes.<p>1. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investopedia.com&#x2F;terms&#x2F;a&#x2F;agencyproblem.asp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investopedia.com&#x2F;terms&#x2F;a&#x2F;agencyproblem.asp</a>

Regarding Bill Nye, this makes me sad. He really was instrumental in making science fun and exciting when I was young. In his post TV life he&#x27;s become just another political idealogue. Even doing as far as censuring[1] his own TV show when the science contradicts his social justice message.<p>Now it seems he&#x27;s coming to normal people with an ax to grind. It&#x27;s hard to see him not profiting from this endeavor.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thefederalist.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;05&#x2F;02&#x2F;bill-nye-censor-transgender-ideology&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thefederalist.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;05&#x2F;02&#x2F;bill-nye-censor-transge...</a>

They&#x27;ve been advertising heavily on Facebook. Companies like Alta Devices and 1366 Technologies have been making kerfless photovoltaics for almost ten years now and are up to gen4 and gen3 production lines respectively, and have been selling in quantity to actual customers.<p>Meanwhile, Rayton has made a down payment on a &quot;microwave ion source&quot; beam accelerator from Pheonix Nuclear Labs and has apparently yet to come up with the remainder of the funds to take delivery, so they are still at gen0 (proof-of-concept.)

I&#x27;m not qualified to comment on the financial accusations but if accurate they seem quite damning. However I&#x27;m not sure I like the way the author of this piece cites usernames from the _comments of the same article_ as experts in the field of solar technology.

Very sad to see professors at UCLA acting as directors for this, if its a scam. I&#x27;m hoping they&#x27;re just ignorant of the economics and not committing willful fraud.

The EEVBlog also has a skeptical look on Rayton: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=IbYtn420QBM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=IbYtn420QBM</a>

Hopeless, ridiculous scam from top to bottom! Silicon isn&#x27;t even a big factor in price of solar cells. It is dirt cheap nowadays, there is less than 1 cent worth of silicon in 1 watt of solar cell (which is worth 22-24 cents nowadays). And that is a small fraction of cost of watt of installed system ($1-$6 depending on type, size, country, and who you ask). That means, for solar industry, that is at best fraction of percent level of improvement.<p>Shameless scam for people who must be so stupid they deserve being scammed.

Is it legal to make investment advice like this and not be a series 7 (or whatever number) licensed broker&#x2F;dealer? Is the author a stock broker?

Here are some important facts from the SEC filing:<p><i></i>If the company cannot raise sufficient funds it will not succeed or will require significant additional capital infusions.<i></i><p>Rayton Solar is offering Common Stock in the amount of up to $50 million in this offering, but may sell much less. After $7 million is raised, the following $3 million will go to the selling securityholders. Even if the maximum amount is raised, the company is likely to need additional funds in the future in order to grow, and if it cannot raise those funds for whatever reason, including reasons outside the company’s control, such as another significant downturn in the economy, it may not survive. If the company does not sell all of the Common Stock it is offering, it will have to find other sources of funding in order to develop its business.<p>Even if Rayton Solar is successful in selling all of the Common Stock being offered, Rayton Solar’s proposed business will require significant additional capital infusions. Based on its current estimates, Rayton Solar will require at least $35 million to create a 54 megawatt, commonly abbreviated as MW, PV module manufacturing facility. This amount does not include the amount needed to manufacture the PV modules for sale. If planned operating levels are changed, higher operating costs encountered, lower sales revenue received or more time is needed to implement the business plan, more funds than currently anticipated may be required. Furthermore, in order to expand, the company is likely to raise funds again in the future, either by offerings of securities or through borrowing from banks or other sources. The terms of future capital infusions may include covenants that give creditors rights over the financial resources of the company or sales of equity securities that will dilute the holders of the company’s Common Stock.<p><i></i>The company has not yet generated any revenues.<i></i><p>Rayton Solar has no revenues generated since its inception. There is no assurance that the company will ever be profitable or generate sufficient revenue to pay dividends to the holders of its Common Stock. The company does not believe it will be able to generate revenues without successfully achieving target market sales for the PV module to large scale project developers, large scale retailers and wholesalers, or contractors. If the company cannot raise enough funds in this financing to manufacture and sell PV modules, it will need to successfully sell its solar cells to PV module manufacturers, which will result in less revenue to the company. If that fails, then it will need to license its current and future patents, assuming the company is granted its patents that are currently pending. Rayton Solar is dependent upon the proceeds of this offering for working capital, including for the manufacture of the PV modules.<p><i></i>The company is an early stage company.<i></i><p>As an early stage company and a company developing a new technology, Rayton Solar may encounter difficulties such as unanticipated problems relating to the development and testing of its product, initial and continuing regulatory compliance, vendor manufacturing costs, production and assembly of its product, and the competitive and regulatory environments in which the company intends to operate. It is uncertain, at this stage of its development, if the company will be able to effectively resolve any such problems, should they occur. If the company cannot resolve an unanticipated problem, it may be forced to modify or abandon its business plan.<p><i></i>Operations could be adversely affected by interruptions of production that are beyond the company’s control.<i></i><p>The company plans to manufacture its own PV modules. However, if it does not raise enough money, it will sell solar cells needed to produce the PV modules, or license the technology instead. Even if it sells solar cells, the company will rely on vendors to provide silicon ingots and other material. If there are interruptions in the ability of a vendor to provide the necessary amounts of silicon ingots, the company will not be able to meet its production.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sec.gov&#x2F;Archives&#x2F;edgar&#x2F;data&#x2F;1654124&#x2F;000114420417002964&#x2F;v456948_253g2.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sec.gov&#x2F;Archives&#x2F;edgar&#x2F;data&#x2F;1654124&#x2F;000114420417...</a>

isn&#x27;t the point then, Rayton is a cry for help from Bill Nye? as in, he wants the world&#x27;s best experts on silicon and solar to come together and work 24&#x2F;7 on this problem.

Not surprising. Bill Nye is a business man not a scientist.

Its just a liberal contract, and you just have to hope they won&#x27;t do it the way this article flags.<p>Most crowd sales have unlimited discretionary use of the funds, and that doesn&#x27;t mean you can&#x27;t make a profit, especially if you receive something tradable back.<p>This is probably another reason why equity companies (or at least, purchases of their private equity) are going to go the way of the dinosaur, without liberalizing a liquid secondary market, now that there are alternatives available.