Mesirow Financial joins Serious Materials’ blue chip investors

Sunnyvale, Calif. - September 22, 2009 - Serious Materials, the leading energy-saving building materials company in the U.S., today announced that the company has closed $60 million in Series C financing. The round was led by Mesirow Financial, a diversified financial services firm in Chicago. Additional new investors included Enertech Capital, Cheyenne Partners, and Saints Capital. Previous investors including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Foundation Capital, Rustic Canyon Partners, Navitas Capital, and Staenberg also participated in this funding round, bringing Serious Materials’ total raised capital to more than $120 million. The funds will be used to accelerate the rapid growth of the company and complete development of next generation, energy-saving building products.

“With a strong management team, vision, and industry-changing technology, Serious Materials is uniquely positioned to drive substantial growth and have a meaningful and positive impact on the environment,” said Tom Galuhn, Senior Managing Director for Mesirow Financial Private Equity.  “We’re pleased to be in a position to help fuel the next stage of Serious Materials’ growth.”

Concurrent with the Series C financing, Tom Galuhn of Mesirow Financial has joined the Serious Materials Board of Directors.

“We are on an important mission to help dramatically save energy, reduce CO2 emissions and stabilize the climate,” said Kevin Surace, CEO, Serious Materials. “Dramatic and disruptive innovation must happen now and on a broad scale. Windows offer the largest opportunity for improvement – fastest payback and highest energy savings. If all buildings in America were to use super-insulating full-frame high R-value windows of R-5.0 or more, versus standard single or dual pane windows, CO2 emissions would be reduced by some 200 million metric tons annually.”

About Serious Materials
Serious Materials develops and manufactures sustainable green building materials that save energy, save money, improve comfort, and aggressively address climate change. Super-insulating full-frame R-value SeriousWindows™ reduce heating and cooling energy costs by up to 50%. SeriousGlass™ super-insulating commercial glass have been installed in over 10,000 projects and offer the highest energy savings in the industry. QuietRock® soundproof drywall reduce material use, enhance livability, and support dense urban construction. EcoRock™, the only true green alternative to gypsum drywall and five times more environmentally friendly, uses 80% less energy in its core production and has the potential to save billions of pounds of CO2 annually. Serious Materials products are manufactured in the company’s five facilities across North America. SeriousWindows and SeriousGlass support energy efficiency funding programs as outlined under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) including Weatherization (WAP), Green Federal Buildings, State Energy Program (SEP), Energy Efficiency – Conservation Block Grants, Energy Tax Credit for Consumers, and Tax Deductions for Commercial Buildings. The company was commended by both President Obama and Vice President Biden for its advanced energy-saving materials and the work it is doing to re-create American green manufacturing jobs. For more information, visit www.SeriousMaterials.com.

We are honored to be recognized by WSJ for our EcoRock drywall innovation to win this year in the Environment category. It’s always nice when mainstream understands the significance of the problem we are tackling - with the help of all of our partners in the building ecosystem, from green architects, to energy modelers, to installers, and many more. See full list of this year’s innovation winners here. Our full press release reads:

Serious Materials Wins Prestigious Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award
Five Times More Environmentally-Friendly Than Gypsum Drywall, EcoRock Honored in Environment Category The Technology Showcase

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–Serious Materials, the leading energy-saving building materials company in the U.S., received the 2009 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award for the Environment category. Chosen from among nearly 500 applications, Serious Materials’ EcoRock is among the Wall Street Journal’s top innovations this year. This award adds to Serious Materials’ growing list of achievements, including Popular Science’s Best of What’s New and selection for the first Aspen Institute award for innovation in Energy Conservation. Serious Materials has also been recognized by TIME/CNN, Fortune, BusinessWeek, GreenTech Media and Red Herring as one of the most promising green technology companies.

EcoRock requires 80 percent less energy to make than traditional drywall and produces 80 percent less carbon dioxide due to the natural curing and drying process as well as eliminating the calcining processes, eliminating the energy-intensive processes of traditional gypsum drywall production. EcoRock is made using pre-consumer recycled waste, including waste from steel and cement plants – and zero gypsum. EcoRock is the first product to receive Environmental Claims Validation by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Environment. The UL Environment audit validates the following environmental claims for EcoRock: 80% recycled content, low VOC emissions (meets CA 01350), mercury free, and highly resistant to mold. And EcoRock is the first termite resistant drywall product available anywhere.

“This is a great honor for our company as we continue to innovate and revolutionize the building materials market,” said Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials. “The manufacturing of standard gypsum drywall has remained virtually unchanged for over 100 years, when the environmental impact of building operations and materials manufacturing processes was not understood. The built environment is the single largest contributor to global greenhouse gases. Buildings account for more than 50% of CO2 emissions generated worldwide, compared to the 9% attributed to car emissions. We are committed to continuous, aggressive innovation that enables the most energy-efficient, cost-effective, environmentally responsible buildings.”

“[It is a] novel solution to a basic problem that has enormous impact,” said Darlene Solomon, chief technology officer of Agilent Technologies and an Innovation Awards judge.

The winners of this year’s Innovation Awards will be a part of The Technology Showcase October 14 and 15, which will spotlight 75 of the industry’s most innovative companies, all vetted by VentureWire editors as industry standouts. Among the speakers at the Technology Showcase will be Walt Mossberg, personal-technology columnist of The Wall Street Journal.

If you are at CEDIA Expo in Atlanta this week, check out the most “soundproofed” home theater room in action. Built on the trade show floor by Performance Media Industries with the newest Triad loudspeakers, the room  demonstrates what an ideal high-end home theater, production, broadcast, or recording studio can really sound – or not sound – like. The acoustic assembly integrated THX-certified QuietHome Doors, QuietRock 530, QuietGlue, QuietSeal, QuietPutty, and QuietWood 630.

In celebration of PMI’s triumph, from now through October 31st, buy QuietHome Doors at 20% below current list price (while supplies last and excludes shipping costs). QuietHome Doors deliver superb noise reduction - 65%-80% more than solid-core doors - in an attractive, stainable wood, pre-hung door package.  The doors are available in two levels of performance and already cost up to 50% less than other acoustic doors.  The entry-level QuietHome Door features an STC rating of 44 and is only 1-3/4” thick.  The THX-Certified QuietHome Door provides an STC rating of 51, is 2-1/4” thick, and is the only acoustic door in the world to meet the demanding standards required for THX certification. For the ultimate in performance in high-end home theaters, two QuietHome Doors may be used back to back, separated by a three-foot air gap, for a total STC rating of over 80.

We’re happy to announce that Serious Materials made the 2009 AlwaysOn GoingGreen 100 Top Private Companies list. The GoingGreen 100 winners were selected from among hundreds of other technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists and industry insiders. The 2009 list was finalized after a three month selection process by the AlwaysOn editorial staff.

According to AlwaysOn, inclusion in the GoingGreen 100 signifies major developments in the creation of new business opportunities in the green technology industries.  Serious Materials was selected based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz.

The GoingGreen Top 100 Companies will be honored at GoingGreen West on September 14th - 16th, 2009 at Cavallo Point in Sausalito, CA.