Corporate funding into battery storage has exceeded US$11 billion so far this year – EQ Mag Pro
Companies in the battery storage sector attracted US$11.4 billion in corporate funding in the first nine months of 2021, a 363% rise on the same period of last year.
Similarly, venture capital (VC) funding into the sector increased considerably: US$5.5 billion was raised from 59 deals, compared to just US$1.2 billion in 21 deals over the same respective periods.
Battery storage companies’ corporate funding activity also dwarfed the other two sectors’ — with a total of US$13.5 billion raised across all three. Smart grid companies raised US$1.867 billion and energy efficiency US$595 million.
However in 2020 the sector rebounded strongly in the latter part of the year. A total US$6.5 billion corporate funding was raised for the whole of 2020, more than double the US$2.8 billion raised in 2019; so either way, it looks like 2021 shows a strong appetite for corporate investment into battery storage.
Northvolt tops VC chart yet again
Once again, Sweden-headquartered lithium-ion battery manufacturing startup Northvolt was top of the table for venture capital-funded deals.
Northvolt, which recently announced a US$750 million R&D and commercialisation centre along with its dozens of gigawatt-hours of cell and systems production facilities under construction, raised US$2,750 million from VC investors.
These investors included Volkswagen, OMERS, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Scania, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and a number of others.
Also in the top five VC-funded deals were a US$590 million Series F funding round by Sila Nanotechnologies in second place. Sila is developing next generation materials for lithium battery design.
Once again, Sweden-headquartered lithium-ion battery manufacturing startup Northvolt was top of the table for venture capital-funded deals.
Northvolt, which recently announced a US$750 million R&D and commercialisation centre along with its dozens of gigawatt-hours of cell and systems production facilities under construction, raised US$2,750 million from VC investors.
These investors included Volkswagen, OMERS, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Scania, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and a number of others.
Also in the top five VC-funded deals were a US$590 million Series F funding round by Sila Nanotechnologies in second place. Sila is developing next generation materials for lithium battery design.
One curious thing to note is that the third-placed deal in the VC deal chart was achieved by Form Energy, a company which, like Northvolt and Sila Nanotechnologies, has a former Tesla executive as CEO.
Fifth in the list was another novel long-duration battery storage tech company, Ambri, which makes a high temperature liquid metal battery and raised US$144 million in a deal that was also announced as closed in August. Investors included Bill Gates again, Japan Energy Fund and Reliance Industries, which is looking into building Ambri systems in India.
Source: energy-storage
