Quino Energy, a developer of organic flow battery technology, closed an additional $1.25 million in a new Seed funding round.
The Seed expansion round brings the company’s total funding (to date) to $4.55 million, including a previously announced seed funding of $3.3 million.
The funding group includes new investors, Energy Revolution Ventures and Doral Energy Tech Ventures, while TechEnergy Ventures increased the size of their earlier investments. They join ANRI and another confidential strategic investor as major Series Seed investors.
Founded in 2021, Quino Energy focuses on developing water-based flow batteries that utilize organic molecules known as quinones to store electrical energy. These batteries are intended for use in both commercial and grid applications.
With the latest funds, the company plans to scale and commercialize its in situ, zero-waste battery electrolyte production process, which turns dyestuff chemicals made from coal tar into high-performance, long-lifetime battery reactants using the flow battery system itself as the chemical reactor.
“The shortage of precious minerals and metals has held back the scale-up of new battery technologies and deep adoption of storage technologies to be embedded within renewable energy projects. Quino’s multi-hour battery can potentially increase the reliance on renewable energy electricity,” said Guy Yavin, Investment Director at Doral Energy Tech Ventures.
Eugene Beh, co-founder and CEO of Quino Energy, said the investment is a strong mandate to make rapid progress on commercializing organic flow battery systems that manufacture their active materials through the company’s process. He added that the company thinks it can reduce the cost of mid-duration (8-40 hour) battery storage by leveraging existing supply chains of battery hardware.
According to Mercom’s Annual And Q4 2022 Funding and M&A Report for Storage, Grid & Efficiency. VC funding for energy storage companies decreased by 34%, with $5.8 billion in 2022 compared to $8.8 billion in 2021.
