Group14, the Washington-based batterytech manufacturing and supplying advanced silicon-carbon tech for lithium-silicon batteries, today announced it has raised $400M in its Series C round led by Porsche AG. Group14’s Series C plays into Porsche’s ambitions to electrify its models and meet the global EV market demand. Cellforce Group, a subsidiary of Porsche, has also been named a Group14 customer.
“Our investment in Group14 is an important step for Porsche’s M&A activities,” remarked Lutz Meschke, Porsche AG’s deputy chairman and member of the executive board of Finance and IT, adding “Despite all global challenges, we are driving forward on our future projects consistently including digitalization and electrification.”
Other backers in this round included OMERS Capital Markets, Decarbonization Partners, Vsquared Ventures, Riverstone Holdings LLC and Moore Strategic Ventures among other large institutional investors. Citi and Nomura Greentech were the joint placement agents on the transaction which saw the company net $441M in financing to date.
The Porsche & Group14 collaboration
This latest financing will enable Group14 to break ground on its 2nd US Battery Active Materials (BAM) factory in Washington state this year. This is in a bid to meet fast-approaching targets worldwide for vehicle electrification and EV adoption.
Porsche’s subsidiary Cellforce Group is set to benefit from Group14’s expansion efforts as it gears up to produce high-performance lithium-silicon battery cells in South Germany from 2024 to be installed in EV Porsche models. “The battery cells are the combustion chamber of the future. We are investing in the development of new high-performance cells with Cellforce and in the production of battery modules,” added Porsche’s Meschke. “As a result, Porsche has decided to partner with Group14 Technologies.”
Group14’s next-gen materials help lithium-silicon batteries deliver 50% higher performance than conventional lithium-ion batteries, eliminating range and charge anxiety. As automakers increasingly pledge to electrify fleets, OEMs are turning to lithium-silicon tech which is fully compatible with existing manufacturing facilities and processes. Lithium-silicon batteries are proving to be better than other industry alternatives in bringing premier performance and reaching cost-parity with internal combustion engines (ICEs).
Group14; The background
Founded in 2015 by Rick Costantino, Rick Luebbeto and Aaron Feaver with the goal of enabling the electrification of everything – from tiny medical, consumer & commercial devices to heavy use cases. The Woodinville batterytech brings new finely-tuned performance capabilities to lithium-silicon batteries. By utilising novel composite materials and its unique industrial process, their batteries can reliably answer the cost, scale, and performance barriers that previously slowed the world’s transition towards the all-electric future.
In the past 12 months, Group14 launched a commercial-scale Battery Active Materials (BAM) factory in the US on top of breaking ground on a joint venture factory with SK Group in South Korea with both sharing the same vision. To meet increasing energy storage demand worldwide, Group14 is poised to accelerate delivery of its mass-market, drop-in ready technology dubbed the SCC55 which is capable of turning any gigafactory into a 1.5GW facility overnight. Already validated in EV-scale batteries and for extreme fast charging uses, Group14’s tech is helping leapfrog significant barriers to high-performing battery applications.
Group14 co-founder & CEO Rick Luebbe, confident in his firm’s future stated, “Group14 is well-positioned to elevate all batteries by enabling the transformational performance of silicon in today’s lithium-ion and tomorrow’s solid-state applications. We have been laser-focused on scaling our factories to deliver commercial quantities to customers in a mission to eradicate charge anxiety as fast as possible. With incredible support from a consortium of strategic and institutional investors led by Porsche who believe in our vision and roadmap, we can continue to advance the batteries that breathe life into the electrification of everything.”
