Battery Startup Log 9 Materials Raises $5 million from Amara Raja Batteries

Bengaluru-headquartered advanced battery-tech Log 9 Materials has announced an equity partnership and collaboration with Amara Raja Batteries (ARBL), one of India’s largest manufacturers of industrial and automotive batteries. The deal involves an investment of $5 Million from Amara Raja Batteries during its ongoing Series A+ funding round.

For ARBL, the investment follows the announcement of its ‘Energy & Mobility’ strategy in June this year, which focuses on entering into new green technologies and solutions. These initiatives will include expansion and investments that will help the Company maintain technological and business leadership in the ‘Energy & Mobility’ space, apart from creating new growth avenues.

While providing an impetus to the research and development work at ongoing projects of Log 9, ARBL is expected to be the primary partner for scaling up the manufacturing operations of Logg’s battery and fuel cell technologies.

Log 9’s newly-developed Rapid Charging Battery Packs solve multiple challenges to expedite 2/3 wheeler EV adoption in India, whereas Log 9’s flagship Aluminum Fuel Cell technology is targeted towards long-haul electric mobility and as a zero emission alternative to diesel generators.

Vikramadithya Gourineni, Executive Director at ARBL said that their investment is in line with ARBL’s plans to invest in cutting-edge technologies to accelerate its evolution towards becoming an ‘Energy & Mobility! enterprise. ‘This will mark the first in a series of interesting developments that we plan to execute in the future. In this fast-changing technology landscape, we do not believe in a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and we are convinced that there will be the scope for interplay of multiple technology solutions for various applications. We believe that Log 9 has made great progress in developing a range of technologies that will prove very promising in emerging mobility applications. I am confident that both entities can derive significant synergies resulting in mutual long term benefits. ” he added

Akshay Singhal, Founder & CEO, Log 9 Materials says, “We are delighted to have ARBL as one of the anchor investors in the Series A+ funding round of Log 9. The partnership with ARBL will enable us to propel commercialization at scale of our Rapid Charging Batteries, which in turn shall play a major role in the future in Log 9 eventually becoming the frontrunner and one of the largest Indian players in advanced cell chemistries. In the upcoming months of 2021, we at Log 9 are looking to take our breakthrough rapid charging battery-tech to end-users at scale; on the other hand, the development and advancements of our Aluminum Fuel Cells will also continue to happen in parallel – including pilots and OEM-level vehicular integrations.”

Log 9 has also confirmed securing funding from existing investors including Exfinity Ventures and Sequoia Capital India’s Surge Programme, alongside a clutch of new investors, as a part of its Series A+ funding round. The strategic angels who also participated in this funding round are — Rajesh Yabaji and Chanakya Hridaya, Co-Founders of logistics industry Unicorn Blackbuck; Rajesh Ramaiah, Partner, Premji Invest; Desikan Sundarajan, MD, Equinor and Faiz Mayalakkara, Director Investments, Emirates Investment Authority. AC Ventures (SEA Frontier Fund LLP) is also among the new investors of Log 9.

The new investors have, along with the existing investors, invested around $8.5 Million in the ongoing $10-12 Million Series A+ round. The fresh funds raised will be utilized to expand production capacity and business development efforts of Log 9’s latest innovation – Rapid Charging Battery technology – which has already completed successful pilots and is due for commercial roll-out in October 2021. Further, these funds will also be utilized to advance the start-up’s Supercapacitor and Aluminum Fuel Cell based innovations. The start-up plans to set up local cell manufacturing for these technologies under the niche category of the ACC PLI Scheme in the coming years.