- Pre-seed funding round, led by EIT InnoEnergy and TSP Ventures, with Heartfelt VC and Exergon, raises £1.3m for game-changing automotive battery company
- Investment will enable TaiSan to rapidly progress its quasi-solid state sodium technology, targeting best-in-class energy density
- Adoption of sodium-ion for BEVs widely regarded as the next major e-mobility shift, offering significant cost, sustainability and safety benefits vs lithium-ion
- TaiSan is targeting a 20 per cent cost saving at GWh-level, its fully scalable technology is available as a drop-in solution at existing lithium-ion production facilities
- TaiSan has signed MOUs with 12 global automotive OEMs
- Media images: https://bit.ly/TaiSan_
London, July 24th, 2024: TaiSan, the UK company pioneering quasi-solid state sodium batteries for the global automotive industry, today announces the raise of £1.3 million, investment that will accelerate development of TaiSan’s game-changing battery electric vehicle (BEV) technology.
Led by EIT InnoEnergy and TSP Ventures, and followed by Heartfelt VC and Exergon, TaiSan’s
pre-seed round is backed by Europe’s leading strategic e-mobility funds. Co-funded by the European Union, EIT InnoEnergy has investment links to both leading automotive OEMs and gigafactories. Heartfelt VC is also linked to a leading automotive OEM.
Adoption of sodium-ion chemistry is widely regarded as one of the next major BEV shifts. The game-changing technology offers significant cost, sustainability, and safety benefits vs lithium-ion, with the global market expected to rapidly grow to a value of £1 billion by 20281, reaching a capacity of 186GWh/year in 20302. TaiSan has already signed 12 MoUs with automakers worldwide, with whom it will conduct collaborative R&D activities in the immediate years.
Launched in 2022 with the objective of realising an industry-disrupting increase in the energy density of sodium batteries for BEVs, TaiSan has developed its own proprietary, innovative polymer electrolyte featuring a metal anode, using sustainable and abundant, environmentally friendly materials across the board. This has resulted in a cell with comparable volumetric and gravimetric energy density to an automotive lithium-ion cell but with a projected 20 percent cost saving over the most common chemistry for BEV batteries.
TaiSan’s ultra-advanced technology offers industry-standard ionic conductivity to enable fast-charging, and high mechanical strength to withstand dendrite growth and, with no leakage possible, no risk of fire. Combined with a projected 20 per cent cost saving vs lithium-ion, with comparable energy density and designed as a ‘drop-in’ solution to existing lithium-ion battery manufacturing facilities, TaiSan’s battery innovation is cost-effective and designed for mass production.
TaiSan has already signed 12 MOUs with automotive manufacturers, and its latest funding will help to advance the development of the company’s innovative electrolyte and anode materials. These patent-pending innovations are based not only on material science but also on scalable manufacturing methods.
CEO of TaiSan, Sanzhar Taizhan, commented: “On behalf of our entire team, I am delighted to announce the completion of this pre-seed fund raise and would like to thank our expert strategic investors for their vision and full support. Sodium-ion offers significant cost, sustainability and safety benefits for the BEV industry. TaiSan’s novel electrolyte and anode material innovations will bring this technology to the next level – batteries becoming smaller, lighter, with best-in-class energy density, and major cost savings too. Our new investment will enable us to ramp up development and we will be announcing some game-changing results in the very near future. Watch this space.”
Lowina Lundström, CEO, EIT InnoEnergy Scandinavia, commented: “For several years we have been following and investing in sodium-ion technology, as we believe this to be one of the most promising chemistries for batteries. Until now, we have mainly seen this as an option for stationary storage applications. However, when we discovered TaiSan we immediately saw the potential for sodium-ion to move into new, more demanding applications such as traction batteries or high-power batteries. We are very excited to kick off the collaboration with the team at Taisan.”
CIO of TSP Ventures, Mike Doswell, commented: “We are incredibly excited to be a part of this investment round into TaiSan. We believe TaiSan’s technological breakthroughs can unlock the promise of sodium-ion by delivering cheaper, highly functional batteries with significantly lower environmental impact. We look forward to supporting Sanzhar and the team, in any way we can, to deliver on their impressive vision.”
Over the last two years, TaiSan has received close to a total of £500,000 in funding by multiple UK Government and Research organisations, including the Department for Transport (DfT), The Faraday Institution, Innovate UK, Advanced Propulsion Centre, Royal Academy of Engineering and Catapult Connected Places. In October 2023, TaiSan was recognised with the award of “Best Growth Potential” by Professor Sarah Sharples (Chief Scientific Advisor to DfT).
The TaiSan team is made up of experienced battery scientists and electrochemists, formerly of MIT, Imperial College, Jaguar Land Rover and The Faraday Institution organisations. Founder Sanzhar Taizhan has received multiple UK battery awards and is a former JLR battery engineer. He also became honouree of the Forbes Kazakhstan 30 under 30, after founding and leading two Warwick University project teams which reached top places at Hyperloop contests run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and The Boring Company.
Notes to editors
1https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/sodium-ion-battery-market-207269067.html
Media Contact: [email protected]
High-res images: https://bit.ly/TaiSan_
About TaiSan
TaiSan is a UK-based battery materials start-up, developing a proprietary quasi-solid electrolyte and anode to achieve best-in-class battery energy density. The company aims to license its material design and process steps to Tier 1 battery and automotive OEMs. The company was supported by UK Government Research organisations to build battery prototypes and has signed multiple MoUs with OEMs worldwide. Its team is comprised of experienced electrochemical scientists from MIT, Imperial College, Warwick Manufacturing Group and Jaguar Land Rover.
About EIT InnoEnergy
EIT InnoEnergy operates at the centre of the energy transition and is the leading innovation engine in sustainable energy. It brings the technology, business model innovation and skills required to accelerate the green deal, progress towards Europe’s decarbonisation and re-industrialisation goals, whilst also improving energy security. Recognised as Europe’s top Cleantech and Blue Economy venture capital firm and investor in 2023 by Startup Genome, one of Europe’s top 10 most active deeptech investors by Sifted in 2023 and the most active investor in the energy sector in 2022 by Pitchbook, InnoEnergy backs innovations across a range of areas.
These include energy storage, transport and mobility, renewables, energy efficiency, hard to abate industries, smart grids and sustainable buildings and cities.
InnoEnergy has a portfolio of more than 200 companies, which are estimated to generate €110 billion in revenue and save 2.1G tonnes of CO2e accumulatively by 2030. Collectively, these companies have raised more than €25 billion in investment to date. InnoEnergy is the driving force behind three strategic European value chain initiatives which include the European Battery Alliance (EBA), the European Green Hydrogen Acceleration Center (EGHAC) and the European Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance (ESIA).
InnoEnergy was established in 2010 and is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union. Since its inception, InnoEnergy has screened more than 7,000 start-ups, launched more than 300 products to market and overseen its portfolio companies filing 370+ patents. Today, InnoEnergy has a trusted ecosystem of 1200+ partners and 35 shareholders and a 200+ strong team with offices across Europe and in Boston, US.
About TSP Ventures
TSP Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm backing transformative hard science solutions to the most pressing environmental and climate challenges. TSP Ventures invest in IP-rich companies at the leading edge of climate innovation, with the potential to disrupt the status quo by delivering more sustainable, geo-secure and cheaper energy, food, water, materials, metals and chemicals.
TSP Ventures provide a high degree of support to their portfolio companies, working closely with founders to drive technologies from the lab to commercial reality as fast as possible. They call this approach venture then nurture.
About Heartfelt VC
Heartfelt_ is Europe’s first cheque fund, investing in the most ambitious pre-seed startups across Europe and in European founders abroad. Heartfelt_ always partners early with founders, usually as their first investors at the start of their venture story, specialising in supporting initial motions from 0 to 1. The team behind Heartfelt_ has partnered with over 300 startups over the past 10 years in our commitment to European pre-seed investing. We see particular promise in first-time founders coming from diverse backgrounds, reflecting our own team’s varied history and lived experiences.
About Exergon
Launched by Audacia and currently being structured, the Exergon fund aims to support and accompany the development of highly innovative industrial decarbonization technologies in Europe, such as new nuclear power, hydrogen, energy storage and energy efficiency. The management team combines technical and financial skills with a resolutely entrepreneurial identity, the hallmark of Audacia.
