Photara develops industrial equipment and consumable products to replace silver with base metals such as copper and aluminum on silicon solar cells. The company works directly with solar cell manufacturers to eliminate silver dependency in the solar supply chain. Their proprietary metallization process reduces silver usage by more than 85 percent while processing over 3,000 wafers per hour and integrates with existing production lines. Photara was co-founded in 2022 by Brian Hardin, with a PhD in chemistry from Stanford and prior experience building and exiting solar company PLANT PV, and Max L'Etoile as CTO, with a background in laser tool manufacturing. The company raised $8 million in seed financing on August 28, 2025, co-led by Voyager Ventures and Kibo Invest with participation from Ahren Innovation Capital, Pace Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Fellows, and Baruch Future Ventures, bringing total funding to $13 million. Headquarters are located in San Carlos, California.