One of the world’s leading companies in this industry is the Spanish company Isofoton S.A. (Isofoton). The company was originally created in 1981 as a spin-off company of the Polytechnic University of Madrid to develop and produce patented bifacial solar cells invented by Professor Antonio Luque. Bifacial solar cells collect solar energy from both the front and back faces of the cell. High development and maintenance costs prevented early adoption of bifacial solar cells, and the company had to revert to traditional solar cell production to stay afloat. The international solar power industry languished in the 1980s, but despite financial challenges the company never gave up on its philosophy of strategically backing innovation. In the late 1990s, Germany decided to invest heavily in solar power. Isofoton was able to take advantage of this, supplying fifteen percent of the German market. This staved off further financial turmoil and enabled the company to commercialize many of its research and development (R&D) projects.