AM Batteries, a lithium-ion dry-electrode technologies developing company, closed a $30 million Series B in an oversubscribed funding round led by Toyota Ventures. The investment combines strategic corporate support from Porsche Ventures and Asahi Kasei, with financial investment from RA Capital Management – Planetary Health, Wilson Sonsini, and Industry Ventures.
The round also includes existing investors such as Anzu Partners, TDK Ventures, Creative Ventures, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, Foothill Ventures, and Zeon Ventures.
The company has stated that it has raised over $60 million to date, and its recent funding round will help the company develop and drive the commercialization of dry powder coating technology and equipment for low-cost lithium-ion battery manufacturing.
According to the company, AM Batteries technology is based on a dry battery electrode process, which is more advantageous than the conventionally used ‘wet-coating’ electrode production. Its dry battery electrode process uses a ‘powder to electrode’ method that reduces the number of steps to make a battery electrode.
“Battery manufacturing improvements are critical for meeting growing EV industry demands. Ultimately, we need solutions to lower production costs to make EVs affordable and accessible,” said Kyle Teamey, managing partner, Planetary Health at RA Capital Management. “At the same time, these critical solutions need to overcome the challenges traditional battery manufacturing processes create for our planet, such as high energy consumption and the use of harmful substances that impact environmental quality”.
“Our approach has the potential to reduce energy usage and CO2 emission by 40% in the battery manufacturing process, creating an overarching net positive for the massive exponential growth of the EV market,” said Lie Shi, CEO of AM Batteries.
According to Mercom’s 9M And Q3 2023 Funding and M&A Report for Storage & Smart Grid, the energy storage Market has seen a surge in VC interest with a 115% increase YoY with around $8.6 billion raised in 68 deals in 9M 2023 compared to $4 billion in 74 deals in 9M 2022.
