Semi-solid battery company 24M received 360 million yuan in financing
Foreign media reported that 24M Technology, a US semi-solid battery company, announced that it has received US$56.8 million (about 360 million yuan) in Series E financing. Investors include Japan's ITOCHU Corporation, Fujifilm and Kyocera Group. 24M technology indicates that the funds will be used for the commercialization of its semi-solid battery technology. 24M technology was established in 2010 and is mainly committed to the research and development and production of semi-solid lithium-ion batteries. Currently, it is developing batteries with a simple structure and using semi-solid electrolytes. 24M technology utilizes this process through differentiated battery design, eliminating the need to use important inactive materials (copper, aluminum, and separators), thereby achieving structural material list advantages and lower manufacturing costs. In addition, the introduction of electrolyte during the mixing process of the binder-free slurry provides a new approach to high-energy-density battery design that has not been explored so far. The new battery architecture uses an ion-conducting non-permeable separator to isolate the negative electrode electrolyte from the positive electrode electrolyte, and at the same time eliminates the solid-solid interface problem that has plagued all solid-state batteries so far. 24M technology has always hoped to fundamentally advance the design and equipment optimization of its semi-solid battery to achieve fully automated production. In terms of technology, 24M technology first announced the design and manufacturing method of its semi-solid lithium-ion battery in 2015, claiming that its battery cost is half the cost of traditional batteries, but it is still in the semi-automated test equipment stage. In 2016, 24M Technology signed a three-year $7 million contract with the Advanced Battery Alliance of the United States. The goal of this research is to develop a battery with an energy density of 350Wh/kg by the end of 2019. This goal has been achieved in the laboratory. In December 2018, 24M Technology announced that it had raised US$21.8 million in Series D financing led by Japanese companies KyoceraGroup and Itochu, and stated that it is advancing plans for multiple factories to produce batteries based on its semi-solid technology. In February 2019, 24M Technology announced that it has developed and delivered commercially viable high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries with an energy density of more than 250Wh/kg. At the same time, 24M technology plans to increase its battery energy density to 350wh/kg or even more than 400Wh/kg. In 2020, 24M Technology announced a cooperation with the Kyocera Group of Japan. Kyocera will develop its residential energy storage system Enerezza using semi-solid lithium-ion batteries produced by the SemiSolid electrode manufacturing process of 24M technology. At the same time, 24M technology has also reached a cooperation with the Thai power and utility company GPSC, which will use its semi-solid battery technology to build the first semi-solid lithium-ion battery plant in Thailand. In 2021, 24M Technology signed a license agreement with the Norwegian start-up battery company Freyr, granting Freyr the right to produce lithium-ion batteries based on 24M's current and all future technologies. Freyr is currently building a lithium-ion battery plant with an annual output of 32GWh in Norway and plans to invest USD 4.5 billion (approximately RMB 29.5 billion). Judging from the above progress, the semi-solid battery technology of 24M technology continues to mature. After obtaining a new round of financing, the commercialization of its semi-solid battery technology may accelerate.