Solid State battery start-up, Solid Power announces $20 million funding

ASSB have generated substantial interest for mobile power applications due to their ability to provide greater run-time per charge and excellent overall product reliability and safety. The automotive industry, in its pursuit of vehicle electrification, is particularly interested in ASSB to boost vehicle range, while using an overall safer and simpler energy storage system as compared to current state of the art lithium-ion batteries.

Solid Power's Series A investment will allow the company to scale-up production via a multi-MWh roll-to-roll facility, which will be fully constructed and installed by the end of 2018 and fully operational in 2019. This production capacity will be utilised for preliminary qualification of the company's solid-state cells for multiple markets including automotive, aerospace and defense.

Series A syndicate investors include Hyundai CRADLE, Samsung Venture Investment Corp., Sanoh Industrial Co., Solvay Ventures, and A123 Systems.

"We are at the centre of the "˜electrification of everything' with ASSB technology emerging as the clear leader in "˜post lithium-ion' technologies," said co-founder and CEO Doug Campbell. "Solid-state batteries are a game changer for EV, electronics, defense, and medical device markets, and Solid Power's technology is poised to revolutionise the industry with a competitive product paying special attention to safety, performance, and cost."

In December of 2017, Solid Power announced its partnership with the BMW Group to jointly develop Solid Power's solid-state batteries for electric vehicle applications and to tailor Solid Power's technology toward automotive requirements for high performance electric vehicles.

Solid Power's solid-state batteries provide substantially higher energy than conventional lithium-ion while also reducing system-level cost by reducing reliance on many expensive engineering solutions typically deployed in lithium-ion systems to assure safe operation of the battery pack.