Amprius feels the $30m charge

Amprius, a spin-out of Stanford University, has secured $30m for its next generation batteries in a series C round led by private equity firm SAIF Partners.

Joining the Asian investor in participation are venture firms Trident Capital, VantagePoint Capital Partners, IPV Capital, and Chinergy Capital. Existing backer and venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) also joined the round, as did Innovation Endeavours, an investment vehicle founded by Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, who personally participated in Amprius’ series B round.

During that 2011 round, KPCB and Schmidt provided $25m, bringing Amprius’ total venture funding to $55m.

The funds will be used to further develop the company’s primary technology, which uses silicon over carbon as a material for electrodes inside a lithium-ion battery. Owing to silicon’s greater ability to contain energy, which potentially could store up to ten times that of carbon, a silicon-based lithium-ion battery could hold substantially more charge than its carbon counterpart.

However, silicon is a tricky substance to utilise effectively due to its rapid expansion when used in a lithium-ion battery, causing the silicon to breakdown after a few charges. This can be manoeuvred around by use of silicon nanowires, however, the nanotechnology is expensive, and currently not suited to commercial production.

Amprius has pencilled in 2015 for producing such batteries while the California-based firm examines concepts to scale up their manufacture. In the meantime, the company will be focusing on its first generation batteries, which utilise a mixture of silicon and carbon, which Amprius began manufacturing in its China-based production facility last May.

Looking forward, the company plans to focus on producing batteries for consumer electronics over 2014, with a view begin pilot production of its second generation batteries, before moving into electrical transportation market in 2015.