Advanced battery firm Gridtential has gained $6 million of investment from a group of the industry’s biggest lead-acid suppliers and distributors.
Investors include lead-acid battery maker East Penn Manufacturing; deep-cycle battery firm Crown Battery Manufacturing; lead-acid exporter Leoch International, and global distributor Power-Sonic.
The funding will support further cost reductions and scaling of manufacturing processes to deliver 12-48V batteries.
Gridtential is targeting the auto industry shift from 12V to 48V high-voltage systems in connected cars.
To some in the industry, 48V lead-based batteries are seen as the best way of making hybrid cars meet European Union CO2 limits of 95 g/km, which will come into 100% affect by 2021.
The group of investors have been working with Gridtential to validate the potential of Silicon-Joule batteries for four years.
Gridtential’s Silicon Joule™ technology allows manufacturers to replace a battery’s lead grid with a plated silicon wafer.
The deal comes just months after battery veteran Ray Kubis became the company’s chairman of the board.
Kubis, said: “Rather than spending our time and efforts on continuous fund raising, we’ve chosen a capital-light path with an existing global network of suppliers that will swiftly exceed giga-scale production of advanced lead-based batteries to meet rapidly growing application demand.”
“East Penn continues to explore advanced battery technologies, and the company strongly believes that lead-based solutions will play a significant role in powering future needs,” said Kevin Smith, East Penn’s VP of Technology.
Gridtential licenses its technology and builds out its drop-in specialty Silicon wafer supply to enable manufacturers to adapt existing factories for 12-48V batteries without large-scale capital investments.
