Infinia

In 1985, a company was founded with a mission to revolutionize energy. Initially known as Stirling Technology Company, and later as Infinia Corporation, the firm was built around the concept of using a two-century-old invention—the Stirling engine—to generate power from heat sources like the sun. For years, the company operated primarily on research grants, including contracts with NASA, developing its unique solar collector dishes designed to produce electricity with high efficiency. The story took a significant turn in 2002 when J.D. Sitton joined as CEO. Sitton transitioned the company from a research-focused entity to one on the verge of commercialization, attracting significant private investment from prominent backers like Paul Allen's Vulcan Capital and Khosla Ventures, raising over $70 million. The company's core product, the PowerDish, was a solar power generation system that it aimed to produce at an automotive scale. The goal was to make solar energy a commercially viable and competitive power source. Despite its innovative technology and substantial funding, Infinia faced immense challenges. The company struggled to compete with the rapidly falling costs of traditional photovoltaic solar panels. In September 2013, after years of development and on the cusp of mass production, Infinia Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Just two months later, in November 2013, the company's assets were acquired by Qnergy, an Israeli-based manufacturer of Stirling engines. Qnergy planned to integrate Infinia's technology to mass-produce Stirling engines for a variety of applications, marking the end of one chapter and the absorption of its legacy into another.