Meet Michael Provenzano, CEO & Co-Founder of Clear Solar, "a space nerd at heart bringing space tech to earth's solar industry" - one of the VentureBridge 2025 Cohort Companies

July 18th, 2025 - Steven Guo

Carnegie Mellon University’s VentureBridge program, an initiative of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, supports CMU-alumni founded companies with capital, co-working space, access to mentorship and resources, and investor demo days across San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and New York City.

In this spotlight series, we take a behind the scenes look at an interview with Michael Provenzano, Co-Founder & CEO of Clear Solar at the beginning of the VentureBridge program in May. The interview below is slightly edited for clarity.

Steven Guo: Clear Solar’s one-liner is “making self cleaning, robotic solutions for solar panels to boost efficiency, lower cleaning costs and reduce water usage.” Tell us more about that. Why is it novel? Why is it different? Why do we have to care?

Mike Provenzano: We learned about dust being an issue from working in my past industries and in the space field. Because when you land things on the moon, there's dust on the moon, and you don't usually have humans there that can clean them off. It can be really expensive and really damaging. It could break in the case of the Mars Rover, where it broke down and they were never able to operate again because of dust.

NASA has developed some technologies, and Astrobotic has also developed some technologies where they worked on this. From my time there, I had some experience and exposure to this and after I had learned about these issues on the moon, I also learned about these issues on Earth. What we’ve found is that solar panels, especially, are something that really suffer from dust build-up, more so than other technologies, because every time there's dust on there, they're not only not generating revenue, but it also costs them money to clean it off.

That leads to both a revenue and cost impact from that, on top of an environmental impact. Because typically when companies need to go out and hose these things off and use chemicals –  one if it's done in a desert region, which is pretty common, because that's where solar panels usually are – there's not a lot of water. Therefore, when you're pulling water out of the ecosystem, it can be really damaging for the plants and the local flora and fauna. But then you're also putting soap and chemicals back into the ecosystem, which is also really bad too.

So there's a lot of reasons why this type of dry cleaning technology, which was developed for space by NASA, is actually useful for applications on Earth. And now what we're doing is licensing the technology from NASA and putting it on solar panels on Earth. We're at the stage now where we have a sense to what our customer needs are, what their willingness to pay is, and the goal is to make a more mass scale of production - instead of a custom solution for space applications - we want to try to achieve economies of scale so that we can get a low cost of entry for customers to use this technology.

Steven Guo: Backing up a little bit. Who are you? Who is Mike Provenzano?

Mike Provenzano: I'm a space nerd at heart! I would say that I really enjoy working with people, building teams, and building a strong culture. That was something that I had the privilege to do in my prior work, and it's actually the main reason why I'm doing this now because I worked with so many brilliant, great people, and I wanted to just do that again. In addition to enjoying the workplace. I wanted to have cool, creative solutions that were – and because I'm also a space nerd – a technology that would allow us to still stay connected to space, but also have a positive impact, on Earth.

My goal for Clear Solar, is to have a stable foundation where we can meet these needs for companies on earth that are cleaning solar panels and also have some applications in space, but not depend on the space industry, because the space industry can be very volatile. There's not a lot of opportunities to pursue in terms of keeping a business stable. So having a terrestrial market where we can grow and expand and have our roots and then have the privilege to work on space stuff is an exciting opportunity and something that really resonates with me as a person. And generally, I know the team that we've brought on board also feels the same way, because these are all people that I have worked with in past opportunities and are also really excited about what we do.

Steven Guo: Why is Clear Solar important to you? What drives you to really focus on this problem of space and the industry in general?

Mike Provenzano: I think it's more of the technology and the solution that draws me in because this is an interesting technology that hasn't really been done before on a commercial scale. Additionally, our team likes hard challenges, so we're kind of drawn to those engineering challenges, and since it also has applications in space… I mean space is one of the hardest frontiers to get into. And so having that kind of engineering rigor behind it that has proven its functionality –  this was recently tested on the moon actually four to six weeks ago – so it's a really simple solution, and its simplicity is actually a testament to how robust and complicated it is. 

So I think that having engineers being able to work on these kinds of challenging solutions and then also derive the technology from space and be able to make a positive impact on Earth is the biggest reason why we're doing this right now.

Steven Guo: You had mentioned that your team’s superpower was that you’re “fluent in moon speak to solve earth's problem.” Tell me more about that. Tell me more about your team.

Mike Provenzano: Yeah, so the guys and girls that are with us, we have two co-founders, and we all have backgrounds in space and other industries too. Space and energy are the two most prominent backgrounds that are throughout our team. One guy has some nuclear experience and has worked in that industry and he understands how to scale power needs and meet power demands. Then there's another guy that also worked on a lot of electronics in his past and he's built systems for medical devices that were going into actual hearts of people to building our moon lander technologies to now where he’s working on helicopter electronics for helicopters. And he's also worked on power electronics as well.

In that case, when we were at Astrobotic, we worked on some lunar surface power technologies that were solar powered. So the between that mix of people, we have kind of good coverage in terms of project management, financial management and business development, but also on the technical side, the engineering rigor behind us, where we've done it in really difficult industries, and we have good connections to other people that are interested in joining us too, once we have the appropriate funding to bring them on board. But I think that if we had solved this in the past for space, that it's actually much easier to solve it for Earth's challenges. So I believe we have a really good team to take on that challenge.

Steven Guo: What’s the North Star of Clear Solar? Where do you want it to be? What's the dream?

Mike Provenzano: Our dream is currently, I mean, we started this, at the beginning of this year so we're still getting everything settled. But our dream right now, our vision is to be able to install this on about one gigawatt of solar capacity within the next 10 years. A gigawatt is actually not that large in the grand scheme of things, on the earth right now, I think there's two terawatts of installed capacity. So it's only a very small fraction of that, and we want to get to that within 10 years. There are some cases, customers, and operators that have more than one gigawatt as their own. It could be up to a three or four gigawatt scale farm. So our goal is to start with smaller installations. We want to start with one megawatt, which is the size of somebody's front yard or backyard.

But as a commercial use for utilities, it's not quite utility scale, but it's slightly under utility scale. And then for that, we want to try to hit that in 2027 as our goal, to be able to get out there and install this on five, one-megawatt sized farms. And then from there, we want to scale. We want to go to 10 megawatts, and then we want to go to 100 megawatts. And then we eventually want to start with a retro fitted kit – like an aftermarket kit – which is going to be a plastic film, and it can be adhered onto the panel at the installation site, and it can be used from that point on. We're also trying to make it so that it's affordable for these groups to use, and that there's a return on investment of break even within five years of installation.

And then after we've proven the technology, and the operators have signified that there is demand, and they want to keep using this… we are hoping to ally with those operators to then go to the manufacturers of the solar panels and say, “Hey, we would like to get this installed during the manufacturing process, and have it be a part of the panel” so that when operators buy it, it's already integrated, and it saves everybody more money in the supply chain as a result. But we can't start there, because these are really big manufacturers and we need to improve our technology to them at that point. 

Steven Guo: What's that timeline look like for you in general? What is that from your experience? What do you think it could look like?

Mike Provenzano: A lot of what I personally have done is winning government grants. I'm used to working with NASA, DoD, and having those opportunities to fuel some of the early stage innovation that then leads to commercial investor activity. My plan right now is to close about $500,000 for this, Friends and Family-ish round, which could be a mix of investment and a mix of grant funding. That $500k is going to get us to a prototype, which we can then put out in the field. We already have a pilot partner, and we are talking to another pilot partner right now about installing this in the field once we have a product.

I think with $500k we could get to that point within a year and a half to two years. So my hope is that in the early 2027 timeframe to mid 2027 that we'll have a prototype out in the field, tested with data, and then we'll be going towards our next stage, which is really production of the system. With that in mind, I think by the 2028 timeframe, it's not crazy to think that we could actually start selling these and be installing these at a small scale to our initial customers. If we get our $500k and friends and family, then we'll probably need on the order of about a million dollars beyond that to get to the production level.

Steven Guo: Moving back more towards you and your why. What ended up inspiring you to pursue this path?

Mike Provenzano: Yeah, that's a fun question. So many people, honestly, I mean, so many people have been influential to setting me on this path. If we go way back, I'll say, my dad. He's always owned his construction business, and he's been doing that for many years. He's in his 70s now, so he's probably been doing that for about 50 years or so, and growing up, it was always dad has his own business, and it was just normal at that point. My brother started his own business, also in construction. My sister started her own business as a yoga instructor, and it's kind of just natural to see that happen in our family. But I never really had a deep passion for running a company growing up.

The moment it hit me – and I've told Dave (Mawhinney) this before – but Dave was a huge inspiration to me. When I started and came into Tepper, straight up when we arrived for Welcome Weekend, he said, “now is the best time to fail. You really have no liabilities or negative consequences that will come out of trying to run a business while you're in grad school.” And because of that sentiment and through seeing a lot of my peers at the time that were diving in and doing it – some were failing, some were successful –  but most importantly, nobody cared. Everybody was learning something from the experience that that was enough of a driver for me to say, “oh, let's try it.” And so I did it at the end of my second year in grad school, and that was with the help of Dave, Craig Markovitz, and some others too, who were really influential.

And then I finally got to the point where that led to me to creating a business which kind of got Acqui-hired – it became a subsidiary of Astrobotic – which then got rolled into Astrobotic, and was where I stayed for a long time. But now with leaving Astrobotic and having the opportunity to be an internal entrepreneur and grow that team from myself to about 60 to 80 people. It was a lot of fun, and I think now having gone through that, I kind of just can't see myself doing anything else at this point.

Steven Guo: What is the one piece about the founder's journey that excites you the most?

Mike Provenzano: I mentioned it earlier in this chat, but for me, it’s getting to know the awesome people that you get to work with. That was the driver for me. I mean, I loved working on things in space. That was cool and really intriguing and for me personally, having the ability to kind of contribute to space exploration, which I think is probably one of the greatest potential discoveries, when we get to that point. So being a part of that was exciting, but at the end of the day, it all becomes work to some degree. And what makes it not feel like work as much is when you're able go back and have a great relationship with others.

You can laugh, you can joke with people on your team. You share some similarities and hobbies. You share a work drive, a passion for something together. And that's what I really miss. That’s one of the things that I'm excited about, one of the main things that drives me as a founder is creating that awesome team again, and having some all stars that are just fun to work with and have great ideas to explore. And one thing that I've seen is that you may have a really clear idea of something you want to do, but that could grow in so many other different ways that it becomes a portfolio of technologies. Being able to see what myself and others come across as we go through this process of development, because we already have ideas of our roadmap and what that looks like from a technology perspective, but to see how that matures and flourishes through over the years, I think is going to be really fun.

Steven Guo: In the past, you had felt unsure and thought “I don't know if I want to do my own business.” What would you tell a younger version of Mike with the experience and perspective you now have at this point today?

Mike Provenzano: The key is getting out there and getting the experience. You never know until you try it. You might think that what you're doing is the thing that's for you, but if you just put yourself out there, and try to go out of your comfort zone, then you might learn something about yourself. You usually will. As I said before, I did not see myself doing this a long time ago, but the experience and perspective helped me get there.

Steven Guo: Thinking about your industry… what's a spicy take you have about your industry?

Mike Provenzano: I'm learning more about the solar industry, which has been fun because it’s refreshing to be thinking about something new and learning so much about something. One thing that I'm learning about the solar industry is how divided and how specialized each company is. There's so many regulations, and each company specializes in different things. One company can generate power, the other company can distribute power, the other company can bill for power, and it goes on and on, there's so many.

It seems like there are layers of companies that operate in this industry, and what seems to be the piece that people are complaining that they don’t like, is how many groups are involved in taking a piece of the revenue pie. I'm interested to see that as well as it seems like there are a lot of energy companies that come and go pretty quickly, that pop up with new ideas, and they kind of just fade away because they maybe weren't competitive enough, or maybe weren't innovative enough. I hope that won’t be us. And I hope that we're going to be learning from a lot of these lessons.

But yeah, my spicy take is that it seems really hard to stay afloat in this industry for a long time, and two, it sounds like it's very convoluted, and people are unhappy with the regulations that are in here.

Steven Guo: What's one thing you hope people will remember about Clear Solar?

Mike Provenzano: At the end of the day, I would hope that people think of us as a great group of people to work with, and a company that has a positive mission statement that wants to make an impact, and is something they can get behind and support as we grow. Our technology has been proven to work as it has on the moon, but hopefully there is a demand case there that as we continue to grow and get more customer interest and find out what their willingness to pay is, I hope that people look at us and say, “Hey, that's a really attractive price point to buy use this product.” And it makes a lot of sense to use it from a business perspective, but depending on what audience you're talking about, I want people to think of us as a good company to work with, a good partner, and a team that's driven by a positive mission statement.

Steven Guo: How can the community help you? How can we support you on your journey?

Mike Provenzano: Right now, the most important thing for us is getting in front of more potential solar customers and users, because we're trying to get that feedback. We're trying to find out what their pain points are and how much they're willing to pay to address those pain points. So we have had some calls. We even have a pilot partner, and another one that is going to be working with us soon, and that's great for us, because it helps us refine our business model and how we're going to approach our entry into the industry.

Aside from potential connections to the solar operators and solar panel manufacturers, our team and I have not personally raised a lot of investment capital before. A lot of our funding has come through grants and then through commercial contracts. So fundraising is kind of new to us. For us, learning more in general, on how we work with different types of investors at different rounds, understanding the things that they look for in terms of investor pitches and materials, the right things to say at the right conversations. That’s all information that we're learning now and that is going to be really helpful for us as we kind of figure out how we convey what our needs are to the broader investor community.

Steven Guo: Last question. Final message. What do you have to say?

Mike Provenzano: I always say thank you. Thank you to everybody for helping us get here. And we're so excited to make an impact. I have always been a proponent of the idea that small teams can do big things, and I think we're on course to do that here. We have a lot of really good ideas, and we have a good vision that's very clear in what we want to do.

My message is we're excited to get rocking and rolling full-time, get our prototype out there, and get customers testing it so we can get some good real-time feedback.

Thank you to Michael Provenzano for the conversation. We welcome you to follow, support, and invest in Clear Solar as they move forward. Come and see them pitch in-person at our upcoming CMU VentureBridge 2025 Demo Days in Pittsburgh (September 24th) and San Francisco (October 8th)!