Wollongong battery startup charges up with $15 million from Indian investor

Battery materials startup Sicona Battery Technologies has raised AU$15 million from an existing investor, India’s Himadri Speciality Chemical, as part of a deal to commercialise its technology.

The Wollongong startup previously raised $22 million in a Series A led by Himadri two years ago, adding to a $3.7 million in a pre-Series A in August 2021.

Cofounder and CEO Christiaan Jordaan and materials scientist Andrew Minett founded Sicona in 2019, setting out to develop next-generation battery technology used in the anodes (negative electrodes) of lithium-ion batteries used for electric vehicles and renewables storage. The duo worked at the University of Wollongong’s Australian Institute for Innovative Materials for more than a decade.

The fresh capital will be used to expand Sicona’s pilot plant operations in Australia and scale up production for sampling materials from global cell manufacturers in EVs, defence, space, and other sectors.

It will also see Himadri, an Indian specialty chemical conglomerates licence the IP for Sicona’s silicon carbon anode material, SiCx, to establish a production facility in India targeting the automotive sector, as part of a royalties deal with the six-year-old startup.

SiCx has been engineered to directly tackle two major barriers to EV adoption: limited range and long charge times, boosting energy density by over 20% and reducing charge times by more than 40%.

Sicona recently announced plans to build a commercial production facility in southeastern USA and Jordaan said they now focused on getting that and the Indian plant, which Himadri is paying for, up and running.

“This deal is transformative for Sicona,” Jordaan said.

“This partnership enables us to commercialise SiCx at an unprecedented speed and scale, without shouldering the burden of the first-of-a-kind facility funding alone.

“Despite challenging capital markets, we are forging ahead, delivering on our goal to be the largest global producer of Si/C materials. This is how we win in climate tech, through smart partnerships, fast execution, and solutions that scale globally.”