On August 16, local time, California-based Sila Nanotechnologies (Sila Nano) announced that its US $ 70 million financing has officially ended. The purpose of this round of financing is to develop silicon-based lithium batteries suitable for electric vehicles and consumer technology products. Sila Nano was founded in 2011 and has been operating silently until early this year before announcing plans to bring the first batteries to market by the end of 2018.
Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership with BMW to supply lithium-silicon batteries to BMW. A BMW spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that BMW plans to integrate batteries made by Sila Nano into vehicles in 2023 to increase vehicle battery capacity by 10% to 15%.
Gene Berdichevsky, co-founder and CEO of Sila Nano, is a former employee of Tesla and has developed the first batteries for Tesla Roadster models. Berdichevsky said that compared with the existing battery, the battery uses silicon as the main anode material, replacing traditional graphite electrodes can reduce costs and improve efficiency by 40%. He hopes that the savings can be transferred to consumers to increase the penetration of electric vehicles.
In addition to cooperating with BMW, Sila Nano also cooperates with battery manufacturers such as Amperex Technology. New Energy Technology (Ningde Times was formerly the power battery division of New Energy Technology Group) also supplies Apple's iPhone and Samsung's flagship product, the Galaxy smartphone, produces batteries.
More efficient batteries can be converted to higher power or batteries with the same energy storage capacity as existing products, but with higher energy efficiency, it means that technology consumer devices have more space to place better cameras or sensors device.
The $ 70 million round was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with Next47 and New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. participating. Other investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Samsung of South Korea, and In-Q-Tel, a strategic investment company of the CIA.