Ionic Materials raises $65M in Series C; polymer electrolyte for solid-state batteries
07 February 2018
Ionic Materials has secured $65 million in a Series C financing round from a leading group of financial and strategic investors. The investors include companies from the battery manufacturing, consumer electronic and electric vehicle ecosystem which will be working with the company to speed the development of its solid polymer electrolyte battery material.
The special properties of Ionic Materials’ polymer electrolyte allow the use of high-energy materials and support solid-state lithium-ion cells with little to no cobalt in their cathodes. Further advancements made possible by Ionic Materials’ polymer will support very inexpensive and low-cost rechargeable alkaline batteries as well.
Key properties of Ionic Materials’ polymer include:
- Up to 1.3 mS/cm at room temperature
- Lithium transference number of 0.7
- High voltage capability (5 volts)
- Can accommodate high loadings in the cathode
- High elastic modulus
- Low cost precursors
- Stable against Lithium
- Conducts multiple ions
The Ionic Materials polymer is truly groundbreaking. It’s no surprise that so many of the leading companies in the battery industry and their key customers are working to incorporate the Ionic Materials polymer in their next-generation products. The many innovations in electrochemistry that the polymer unlocks will change the future of renewable energy. Products from our partners using Ionic Materials’ technology will lead the charge to safely power everyday products with eco-friendly, high-capacity batteries.
—Bill Joy, personal investor and a founding member of the Ionic Materials Board of Directors
(As a Berkeley graduate student, Joy was a seminal figure in the creation, support, and rollout of BSD UNIX, an open-source operating system that was the first to have built-in TCP/IP networking. Bill Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy and Andreas von Bechtolsheim. Joy served as chief scientist there until 2003. Joy is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a lifetime trustee of the Aspen Institute.)
Ionic Materials will provide its polymer to the battery industry as an advanced materials supplier. Through this approach, it will reach the broadest market segments and establish a complete ecosystem of cell manufacturers serving the consumer electronic, electric vehicle and energy storage markets.
Ionic Materials has created a new composition of matter that will be fundamental to the transformation of the battery as we know it. Over my 30-year career working in energy storage, Ionic Materials’ polymer stands out as a breakthrough innovation that is a critical element to the next generation of batteries.
Numerous energy storage start-ups have made progress in the past, but the industry will be transformed by a novel material like Ionic Materials’ polymer which can replace liquid electrolytes with a solid alternative and help the industry get past the safety, cost and performance challenges it faces.
—Jan van Dokkum, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Chairman of the Ionic Materials Board of Directors
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