Anzu's January newsletter highlights strong momentum for AM Batteries, new funding for XGS Energy, a new partnership between Voltaiq and Siemens, and more.
AM Batteries rolls into 2024 with strong momentum, building on significant commercial progress
XGS Energy raises ~$10M led by Constellation Energy
Voltaiq partners with Siemens to accelerate battery manufacturing
BioSkryb Genomics presents new research at AGBT 2024
Xendee doubled its customer base in 2023
Hi everyone,
We are excited to highlight one of our leading energy transition investments, AM Batteries (AMB), which achieved multiple milestones in the last year. AMB developed a dry electrode manufacturing process for the fabrication of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, saving significant operational and capital equipment costs while reducing CO2 emissions as compared to the incumbent solvent coating method.
Company and Technology Overview
The Li-ion battery market is growing rapidly, primarily driven by EVs and stationary energy storage pairings with renewable energy generation. Today, there are plans to build more than 100 new Li-ion battery factories worldwide that aim to add approximately 5-6 TWh of capacity—nearly 8 times the demand projected for 2023—to support the energy transition.
But these factories, which are split into 3 basic operations: electrode manufacturing, cell assembly, and aging and formation, also present their own challenges. The electrode manufacturing stage, for example, uses a conventional “wet” slurry coating method. This is not only an energy-, cost-, and space-intensive process, but it uses NMP, a toxic solvent that has been severely restricted by the European Union (EU) due to its hazardous effects.
AMB removes this hazardous solvent from the electrode manufacturing process, and instead uses a dry electrostatic spray to deposit battery material directly onto a current collector. This distinct approach has several advantages to other dry methods, including Tesla’s extrusion-based coating. AMB’s solution offers significant chemistry flexibility, has no limitation on coating thickness, reduces mixing time and the equipment required, and allows for enhanced electrode architecture control capability (e.g., layering).
AMB’s dry process provides the most significant cost reduction in Li-ion battery manufacturing when scaled and has become attractive to leading cell makers, auto OEMs, investors, and top-level talent.
Company Highlights
Q1 2023: Signed 2 JDA’s with a major EU cell maker and a leading electronics producer to commercialize AMB’s technology. A successful interaction with the EU cell maker has outlined a significant offtake agreement conditional on technical milestone achievement.
July 2023:Key hires include industry veteransLie Shi as CEO, who previously served as president of leading battery separator company Celgard, and Hieu Duong as Chief Manufacturing Officer, former Director of Dry Electrode at Tesla and inventor of the dry extrusion process for Li-ion batteries.
December 2023: AMB closed a$30M Series Bled by Toyota Ventures, with all existing investors contributing their pro rata and new money coming from Porsche Ventures, RA Capital, Industry Ventures, Asahi Kasei Ventures, and Wilson Sonsini.
End of 2023: the company fulfilled its first equipment PO and installed its first R&D system at the EU cell maker site, which has performed “above expectations,” according to the lead project engineer.
January 2024: The company more than doubled in size in 2023, from 14 to 32, and moved into a new, 33,000 ft² facility to expand its operations and capabilities.
February 2024: Assembly completion of new “Engineering Pilot Line” planned for mid-February, with a full system test anticipated in May ’24, will demonstrate to the Li-ion industry the scalability and efficacy of AMB’s dry process.
The company continues to make significant commercial progress with major battery makers, and we anticipate multiple newsworthy events in the next several months. We are excited about AMB’s achievements in 2023 and are looking forward to continuing this momentum in 2024.
Best,
Josh Stiling, Investment Director and Jimmy Kan, Partner
PORTFOLIO COMPANY UPDATES
XGS Energy Secured $9.7M in New Financing
XGS Energy, an innovator in next-generation geothermal energy technology, announced that it has raised an additional $9.7 million. The round was led by Constellation Technology Ventures, with participation from BlueScopeX and Thin Line Capital, as well as individual inside investors. This new financing will accelerate XGS’ North American prototype demonstrating its proprietary Thermal Reach Enhancement™ (TRE) geothermal technology at full commercial scale.
XGS’ upcoming prototype will demonstrate the commercial readiness and scalability of its TRE technology and further validate its proprietary predictive performance models. The prototype builds on the successful completion of more than 24 months of lab testing and is a key milestone for XGS’ first commercial projects in the Western United States, Japan, and the Philippines.
BioSkryb Genomics, the company transforming single-cell analysis from discovery to diagnostics, shared new research showcasing its latest multiomic data, whole genome sequencing, and comprehensive multiomic profiling at the AGBT 2024 General Meeting on February 5-8, 2024, in Orlando, Florida.
As a Bronze Sponsor of the event, BioSkryb also hosted a workshop and networking event at the meeting. During the workshop, BioSkryb Co-Founder & CTO Jay West shared how BioSkryb advances multiomics and highly accurate single-cell analysis with the next generation of single-cell technology.
Voltaiq Partners with Siemens to Optimize Battery Manufacturing
Voltaiq, the leading provider of Enterprise Battery Intelligence™ (EBI) analytics software to optimize battery performance, reliability and financing, and Siemens, a leading technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, transport, and healthcare, announced that they have developed a new solution that combines Voltaiq’s EBI with Siemens’ Insights Hub to accelerate battery manufacturing.
Through this collaboration, customers can rapidly scale operations smoothly, from initial development to full-scale production lines.
Xendee, the world’s leading Electric Vehicle (EV) fast charging and distributed energy system design platform, announced another year of significant growth and achievement in the clean energy and EV infrastructure space.
Xendee released two major new products in 2023, doubled its customer base, and had an excellent customer retention rate of over 95%. Xendee also introduced several groundbreaking features in 2023, enhancing the platform’s EV modeling capabilities and addressing the unique needs of commercial EV infrastructure design and operation. These updates include a customizable EV consumption builder app based on EV type and Google route information among others, the incorporation of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) incentive, and multiple technology and vendor databases.
Stacey Fabo, Investor Relations & Capital Solutions
Stacey is currently a senior at Harvard University, majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology. She will be supporting Anzu’s business development efforts, helping to identify and connect with corporates that could be potential customers of Anzu portfolio companies. She will be joining the team full-time when she graduates.
Niron Magnetics was included in a feature story by MIT Technology Review on how its magnets could accelerate climate action. Niron was also mentioned in a MinneInno article on startups to watch in 2024.
BioFlyte and NTx were featured in a New Mexico Inno article on local innovation trends for 2024 and momentum for life sciences companies.
Xendee Co-Founder and CTO Michael Stadler discussed how the company is bringing speed and efficiency to DER deployments in an episode of Renewable Energy World’s Factor This! Podcast, and Joshua Goldman, Xendee VP of e-Mobility, was featured in a Q&A about electric microgrids in Heavy Duty Trucking.
AM Batteries CEO Lie Shi shared his 2024 predictions for the industry with Battery Technology.
BioSkryb Genomics Co-Founder Dr. Chuck Gawad contributed a 2024 Trends article to Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News on how single-cell genome sequencing is driving a new era of genetic research.
South 8 Technologies was mentioned in an article from The Register on electric vehicle batteries struggling to function in cold temperatures.
OTI Lumionics was featured in a Toronto Star article on the potential of molecular engineering and nanostructures.
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ABOUT ANZU PARTNERS
Anzu Partners is an investment firm that focuses on industrial and life science technology companies with the potential to transform their industries. Anzu works with entrepreneurs to develop and commercialize technological innovations by providing capital alongside deep expertise in business development, market positioning, intellectual property, global connectivity, and operations. For more information, please visit https://anzupartners. com/.
The information contained in this newsletter is being provided by Anzu Partners for informational purposes only. The information was obtained from various sources, but Anzu Partners cannot assure its accuracy. This is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation for an offer to buy an interest in any fund managed by Anzu Partners. Any such offer or solicitation will only be made to qualified potential investors pursuant to a private placement memorandum. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss.
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