Addionics today announced it has raised $27 million in a Series A funding round to scale up its efforts to redesign battery architecture using its smart 3D electrodes, which it says improves the cost and performance of batteries with any chemistry—existing or emerging.

The funding round for the chemistry-agnostic battery technology company was led by Deep Insight, a deep tech investment firm founded and backed by Jeff Horing, the founder of Insight Partners, together with Catalyst Fund, Delek Motors, and Dr. Boaz Schwartz. Additional investments include strategic and financial support from Novelis, Magna International, JX Nippon Mining & Metals, Union Tech Ventures, 8090 Partners, GiTV, Talcar Corp., Bridges Israel Impact Investment Fund, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures (Doral Energy CVC), and Dr. David Deak. Existing investors that participated in the round include NextGear Ventures and Vasuki Global Tech Fund.

Along with his investment, Deak joins Addionics’ Board of Directors, leveraging his experience leading supply-chain projects and battery engineering programs on Tesla’s Gigafactory team. Former Executive Director at NIO Capital, Yair Shacked, also recently joined Addionics’ Advisory Board.

“With the backing of our esteemed investors and strategic partners, Addionics is forging a clear path to market disruption and is well-positioned to deliver higher performing, lower-cost batteries at scale,” said Dr. Moshiel Biton, CEO and Co-founder, Addionics. “We look forward to accelerating our product development and laying the necessary groundwork for commercialization as we remain committed to our mission of revolutionizing the battery industry by building the best battery cell architecture in the market.”

“Addionics’s battery electrode technology promises to expedite the commercial viability of new and future chemistry configurations such as solid-state and silicon, while also optimizing batteries that are already widely adopted including LFP, NMC, and other Li-ion based technologies,” said Dr. Eyal Kishon, Chairman at Deep Insight.

“With its unique physics-based approach to battery technology, Addionics stands above the competition in terms of mass-market potential,” added Yair Shamir, Managing Partner at Catalyst-Fund.

The Series A investment follows an initial $9 million in funding led by Next Gear Ventures, which included a $2.5 million grant as part of the European Union’s Horizon2020 innovation competition.

 

Biton on scaling up for 2024 commercialization

Founded in 2018 by Biton, CTO Vladimir Yufit, and CSO Farid Tariq, Addionics has big plans to advance the integration of its technology into a variety of applications with an initial focus on EVs. The company is collaborating with some of the world’s largest automakers and suppliers to integrate smart 3D smart electrodes with lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), lithium iron phosphate (LFP), silicon, and lithium polymer battery chemistries along with solid-state batteries.

Addionics is focused on redesigning the battery architecture, replacing the electrode’s traditional 2D layered structure with an integrated 3D structure. This approach is said to result in batteries with increased energy density and power, enhanced safety, and longer lifetime—all without increasing battery cost.

Regardless of battery chemistry trends and supply-chain constraints playing out in the industry, such as with NMC, NMA, LNMO, and the moves of Tesla, GM, Ford, Volkswagen, and the many other automakers driving the adoption of each, Addionics believes it is poised to create the next step-change in battery performance and help alternative chemistries become commercially viable faster.

“Battery performance has not improved a lot in the last 30 years, and billions have been spent to improve batteries only by focusing on the battery chemistry,” said Biton. “While this is what most companies are doing, we focus on the physics and believe the next step-change in battery performance requires both. Our smart 3D electrodes enhance any kind of existing battery chemistry (as shown with our commercial projects) and also have the ability to accelerate the commercialization of emerging chemistries such as silicon and solid-state. The 3D electrodes help solve silicon instability and the main issue of solid-state—the anode/cathode capacity mismatch.”

The company’s core intellectual property is its patented and scalable electrode fabrication process that significantly lowers manufacturing costs, which is said to enable mass-market adoption of 3D electrode structures for the first time. The drop-in solution is compatible with existing battery manufacturing facilities and assembly lines. In addition, its proprietary AI (artificial intelligence) algorithm accelerates battery development time, optimizing electrode designs to meet battery application and performance requirements.

With the combination of its patented manufacturing process and AI algorithm, the company says that manufacturers can build high-performance batteries with reduced market prices at giga-scale.

Addionics plans to use the additional investment to further develop its technology capabilities and applications with the goal of reaching commercialization by 2024. It will also be used to expand the company’s team and increase its activity in the U.S. and Germany to better engage with partners.

“Right now, our biggest challenge is scaling up, which the $27 million in fresh funding will directly support,” said Biton. “This amount will help Addionics to reach small-scale production volume which will allow us to generate first revenues from selling our product. Moreover, we will expand our team, our production line, and recruit more battery experts with these funds.”

 

Partnering with Saint-Gobain

One example of Addionics’ collaborations is with Saint-Gobain Ceramics to co-develop solid-state, LFP, and silicon batteries with its AI-optimized 3D smart electrodes. The partnership, announced in April 2021, involves the development of high-power, high-capacity, solid-state batteries with novel electrode components. Initiated under the Israel-U.S. BIRD Foundation Energy program, the partnership aims to offer major improvements in EV battery performance such as longer driving range, fast charging, enhanced safety, and lower production costs.

Saint-Gobain’s initial technological breakthrough with solid-state battery components enables safer battery operation and low-cost manufacturing by simplifying the production flow and eliminating intermediate processes. Its electrolytes have demonstrated high Li-ion conductivity comparable with the state-of-the-art solid electrolytes and offer additional potential performance, manufacturing, and economic benefits.

“We believe our unique solid-state electrolyte technology will offer enhanced safety and performance for next-generation batteries with the potential for low-cost manufacturing,” said Dr. Mark Hampden-Smith, VP Business and Technology Strategy, Saint-Gobain Ceramics.

Addionics smart 3D electrode technology enables enhanced electrical current collection across the volume of thick battery electrodes and improved material usage leading to a boost in battery energy density and cycle life, as already demonstrated in more conventional battery platforms. Addionics technology also helps to solve the interfacial resistance issues commonly observed in solid-state batteries.

“The technology enables to save cost, achieve high performance and generate less waste,” said Biton. “We start with cars but go beyond, our technology can support the creation of a better environment and a more sustainable future.”