Grid-scale liquid metal battery storage company Ambri has secured $35m in funding from its series C equity financing round.
Ambri revealed new investors in this round include KLP Enterprises, the family office of Karen Pritzker and Michael Vlock, and Building Insurance Bern, the Swiss Insurance company. Existing investors also supporting this round include Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates and Total, the French energy major.
The company is expected to use the additional funding to deliver commercial systems to customers, develop a commercial-scale battery factory and continue technology development. Ambri has recently been awarded projects to deploy prototype systems in Massachusetts, Hawaii, New York and Alaska, with project partners such as First Wind, Hawaiian Electric, Raytheon and Con Edison.
The company announced the opening of its prototype cell manufacturing facility in Massachusetts in the autumn of 2013.
“Ambri’s solution is highly distinguished from others in the marketplace on cost and performance – thanks to a simple manufacturing process, use of cheap and safe materials, and significantly longer lifetime compared to other approaches we’ve seen. Large-scale, cost-effective electricity storage will be a critical part of reinventing our global electric grid infrastructure. Khosla Ventures is proud to be a partner with Ambri, and we look forward to participating in the company’s continued success,” said Andrew Chung, Partner at Khosla Ventures and Board Member of Ambri.
“This round of investment is a milestone for Ambri and will accelerate our commercialisation efforts,” said Phil Giudice, Ambri CEO.
The core technology for the battery is was developed in the laboratory of Donald Sadoway, MIT professor of materials chemistry along with Dr. David Bradwell, Ambri’s CTO.
Ambri has raised over $50m in equity financing since its founding in 2010. and is the exclusive licensee of the liquid metal battery intellectual property developed at MIT.
The company has also received grants from the Office of Naval Research and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.