Lithium-free battery solution raises $78mn for prototyping

Boston-based Alsym Energy, which develops rechargeable batteries for stationary storage, marine and mobility applications, announced a $78 million financing round to expand its battery prototyping and pilot lines to address increasing demand for customer samples.

The funding round was jointly led by Tata Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, and global venture capital firm General Catalyst.

Alsym Energy, which develops batteries that provide an alternative to lithium and cobalt, calls the successful financing indicative of growing interest in high-performance, inexpensive non-flammable battery technologies.

“As the clean energy transition accelerates, it’s becoming more apparent that a single battery technology is not ideal for every use case, and that more options are needed to help address the challenges of a changing climate,” said Mukesh Chatter, CEO and co-founder of Alsym Energy.

“This funding round represents a significant vote of confidence in our approach to developing new, non-flammable battery chemistries that combine high performance and low cost with a high level of safety. It gives us the ability to speed our pace of development, increase our capacity to provide samples to both existing and prospective customers, and ultimately get our first product to market as quickly as possible.”

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According to Alsym in a release, their first product, called Alsym Green, offers significantly higher system-level energy density than other non-flammable, non-lithium battery chemistries. Products targeted to the marine, two-wheeler, three-wheeler, and passenger vehicle markets are planned to follow.

The company claims that, with the ability to operate at elevated temperatures, Alsym Green is the only high-performance, non-flammable option suitable for stationary and grid storage in situations where the risk of fire increases as the mercury rises.

Further to this, the company states an industry-leading levelized cost of storage (LCOS) and ability to support a wide, software configurable range of discharge durations, enabling the Alsym batteries to be used for short, medium and long-duration storage applications without the need for multiple solutions.

“Battery storage systems can help provide firm capacity to the grid when the sun is not shining and wind is not blowing, but changing climates and hazardous environments demand flexible solutions that can meet a range of needs safely and economically,” said Dr Kripa Varanasi, co-founder of Alsym Energy and professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.

“Alsym batteries are ideally suited to both temperate and warming climates, as well as infrastructure and industrial applications including data centres, steel mills and chemical plants. Our low-cost, non-toxic technology will help make decarbonisation economically feasible in the developed world as well as G-77 nations, allowing everyone to play a role in the clean energy future.”

Genevieve Kinney, partner at General Catalyst, added: “As we continue to see record scaling of renewable energy resources around the world, the practical constraints and supply chain uncertainties of Lithium-Ion batteries have become more acute, driving demand for alternatives that compete on performance, cost, and availability. This is particularly salient in emerging markets, where battery storage will be critical to driving down the cost of clean energy.”

“Alsym’s low-cost batteries combine performance and safety, and their strategic partnerships reflect one of the key pillars of our Global Resilience thesis, which relies on radical collaboration with established industry partners to scale new, critical technologies.”