Battery technology firm gets $300m valuation from capital...

Battery technology firm gets $300m valuation from capital raising

BUSINESS

A company with a potentially revolutionary battery technology has earned a notional value of $300 million after a capital raising.

John McCarthy

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Li-S Energy has raised $20 million ahead of an announcement
Li-S Energy, a subsidiary of Brisbane’s PPK Group and the Deakin University, has been developing a lithium-sulphur battery and is expected to soon announce a key milestone.
“The funds from the capital raising would be used to accelerate the battery development and start construction of a new facility to produce lithium-sulphur batteries for testing and demonstration,” the company said.
The capital raising is regarded as “pre-IPO” for Li-S. It issued 40 million shares at 50 cents each to institutions and sophisticated investors.
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Last month PPK executive chairman Robin Levison said the battery’s development had got to a stage where PPK and Deakin believed they had solved the issues that had kept lithium-ion at the front and Li-s behind it.
And “but we believe we are only a couple of weeks away from an outcome with the Li-s research’’.
“We believe that in every way you measure an electric vehicle battery – energy, density, recharge time, mileage, we think the Li-s will be at least three times superior,’’ Levison said.
A smaller, more effecient battery would potentially change the market for automobile manufacturing.
Li-s’s objective is to develop and commercialise a battery using boron nitrate nanotubes, which have been developed by Deakin and BNNT Technology.
Following the capital raising, PPK will hold 48.5 per cent of Li-S Energy, Deakin 20.8 per cent and BNNT 8.3 per cent.
The battery project is one of seven between PPK and Deakin using BNNT.
The market for rechargeable batteries is expected to reach $US43 billion ($A56.5 billion) by 2027 and Brisbane has some key companies in the sector such as PPK, Anteotech and Novonix.
The batteries are used in a wide range of products from cars to smart phones.