UCL spinout AcouBatt has raised £1.1 million ($1.5 million) to develop acoustic monitoring technology intended to reduce lithium-ion battery formation times, identify defective cells and improve safety.
The pre-seed round was led by Creator Fund, with participation from Ada Ventures. AcouBatt said it will use the funding to expand its technical team, develop its artificial intelligence models and progress pilot programmes with battery manufacturers.
The company combines externally mounted acoustic-emission sensors with AI to monitor mechanical and electrochemical activity inside cells during formation and ageing. Its software classifies the signals and synchronises them with conventional electrochemical measurements, potentially revealing process deviations that voltage and current data alone may miss.
AcouBatt claims the technology could shorten formation by up to 30% by identifying when key processes have been completed, allowing manufacturers to reduce conservative time buffers without affecting cell performance. The system is also intended to flag abnormal cells before they pass quality control.
Formation establishes the protective interfaces needed for a lithium-ion cell to operate safely and reliably, but is one of the slowest and most expensive stages of production. Academic research has estimated that formation can account for up to one-third of cell-production costs, while formation and subsequent ageing can occupy equipment and factory space for days or weeks.
The UCL technology is being benchmarked at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC), where AcouBatt has deployed sensors in the laboratory. The company said it plans to introduce commercial-scale products to the wider battery industry in 2027.
AcouBatt CEO and co-founder Dr Arthur Fordham said: “AcouBatt provides a diagnostic tool that not only saves massive amounts of time on the factory floor but helps manufacturers and operators truly understand and look after their battery systems from the moment they are formed to the end of their working life.”
The company is also targeting battery energy storage systems. By comparing acoustic activity with battery-management-system data, it aims to identify underperforming or failing cells before they contribute to safety incidents or unplanned downtime.
Technology based on research at UCL’s Electrochemical Innovation Lab
AcouBatt was founded in 2025 by Fordham and commercial director Chris Haoxin Xu, who met through London Business School’s Innovation to Market programme. Its technology is based on Fordham’s research at UCL’s Electrochemical Innovation Lab, supported by the Faraday Institution through the SafeBatt project. UCL Ventures supported the spinout and assigned the underlying intellectual property to the company.
The investment comes as manufacturers outside China try to improve production economics and yields. The International Energy Agency said China produced more than 80% of the world’s batteries in 2025, while manufacturing costs in Europe and the US remained as much as 50% higher. Global lithium-ion battery deployment was six times its 2020 level.
