Adden Energy, a solid-state battery developer for electric vehicles (EVs), secured $15 million in Series A funding. The funding round was led by At One Ventures with participation from Primavera Capital Group, Rhapsody Venture Partners, and MassVentures.
The company plans to use the funding to expand its lithium-metal solid-state batteries in pouch cell form factors to become more commercially accessible to EVs.
In 2022, the company received $5.15 million in seed financing and a technology license from Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development.
“Current EVs work great for people like me – those with at-home charging whose driving consists of short commutes and an occasional road trip,” explained Adden Energy Co-Founder and CEO Will Fitzhugh. “That’s not good enough. We need to deliver battery solutions that put EVs at parity with the internal combustion engine in every consumer-facing dimension.
Lithium-based batteries have more energy density than most battery materials, offering longer driving range at lower costs. However, lithium metal dendrites (microscopic strands of lithium metal) grow through the battery, causing short circuits and battery failures.
“Every battery has some level of imperfection – or defects – which dendrites can use as an avenue to grow. For example, dendrites can grow along microscopic cracks in the battery components,” said Harvard Professor and Adden Energy Co-Founder and Chairman Xin Li. “Rather than trying to make perfect batteries with no defects, which is practically impossible, we’ve figured out how to make components that self-heal dynamically while the battery is in use, a phenomenon that has been studied for years and nowadays can be designed by us. This allows the battery to stop dendrites in terms of both manufacturing defects and any damage to the battery that happens during its useful lifetime.”
According to the recently released Mercom’s 9M and Q3 2024 Funding and M&A report for Energy Storage and Smart Grid, Venture capital (VC) funding for Energy Storage companies in 9M 2024 came to $2.7 billion in 61 deals, a 69% decrease year-over-year compared to $8.6 billion in 68 deals in 9M 2023.
