Well there you go Silsa, must have one hell of a top sales exec that can clinch a deal like that, well done with just 20% improvement in battery performance , and that doesn't count the $320 million they got up front , ADO has achieved 21% from just a drop in additive some time ago , quite amazing the 10 collaborators testing our materials have not paid a red cent ? do Anteotech need some negotiation skills at the top ? they certainly have achieved world class battery tech , who says we will never build our own battery plant ?
Sila Nano collects $590 million for 100 GWh plant
Battery materials specialist Sila Nanotechnologies has raised $590 million in a new round of financing. The company based in California counts BMW and Daimler on its list of partners.
Sila Nanotechnologies plans to install a 100 GWh plant in the US to produce its silicon-dominated anode material. The facility is set to go live in 2024 and deliver anode material for e-car batteries from 2025. Sila Nano says the funding will help develop said 100 GWh plant and serve smartphone and automotive customers. They will also hire another 100 employees in 2021.
BMW and Daimler both want Sila’s new anodes designed to replace conventional graphite electrodes. Both German carmakers also hold shares in the start-up which a group of battery engineers from Silicon Valley and a professor for material sciences from the Georgia Institute of Technology had founded in 2011. Chinese battery manufacturer Amperex Technology Limited (CATL) is also a client. The automotive cooperation focuses on next-generation lithium-ion batteries for use in electric vehicles. These are to be manufactured on existing equipment and with conventional production equipment.
Specifically, the company is replacing graphite electrodes entirely with silicon-dominated composites. Gene Berdichevsky, co-founder and CEO of Sila Nano, expressed back in 2019 that his company’s approach would deliver an improvement of up to 20 per cent and that it had even further potential compared to conventional Li-ion. Sila Nano is now outlining that potential in more concrete terms: Over time, a 50 per cent improvement is achievable, we hear from their HQ.
