Indian Investor, Others Help Australian Battery Startup Sicona To Raise AU$22m Funds 

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Australian battery startup Sicona Battery Technologies (Sicona) has now announced raising AU $22 million in Series A funding, which will be used to further the company’s development plans in Australia and the United States.

The $22 million investment was led by India’s Himadri Speciality Chemical Ltd, leading Australian venture capital investor Artesian, and Electrification & Decarbonization AIE LP, a fund managed by Waratah Capital. Riverstone Ventures, Chaos Ventures, Investible Climate Tech Fund LP and Club Investible also participated in the funding round. Kolkata-based Himadri is a carbon materials specialist which had a turnover of Rs 4172 crores in 2022-23 with a PAT of Rs 208 crores. 

Sicona develops low-cost, scalable next-generation battery materials technology used in lithium-ion batteries that enable electric mobility and storage of renewable energy.

Sicona’s current generation silicon-composite anode technology delivers a remarkable 50-100% higher capacity than conventional graphite anodes, and its anode materials can deliver more than 50% higher cell energy density than current Li-ion batteries. 

In announcing their investment in Sicona to the National Stock Exchange of India, Himadri Speciality Chemical Ltd chairman and managing director Anurag Choudhary said Sicona was a “strategic fit” for his company.

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“We are delighted to make this investment in Sicona. Sicona’s ground-breaking research and cost-effective and highly scalable approach to silicon anode manufacturing perfectly complement our strategic objectives,” Choudhary said.

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The company, which has its headquarters and pilot plant based in Wollongong, just south of Sydney, is advancing engineering studies, site selection, and customer qualification for a 20ktpa (~200 GWh) silicon-carbon production plant starting with 5kpta (~50 GWh) in phase I. 

This commercial-scale plant will be built in the southeastern United States to serve customers in the US market with Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) compliant materials supply. Funds raised in this round will provide significant growth capacity in the US over 2023-24, where demand for anode materials is estimated to exceed 1,200GWh by 2030.

“Sicona’s core product is an innovative silicon metal based silicon-composite battery anode technology enabling more than 50% increase in energy density of existing Li-ion batteries,” Sicona CEO and cofounder Christiaan Jordaan said.

By using silicon metal (and not expensive, supply chain constrained, and dangerous silane gas like our competitors), Sicona can offer low-cost silicon anode materials at a large automotive scale locally in major markets.

“Our silicon metal-based technology decouples us from the major bottlenecks and cost implications of silane gas-based technologies and provides our customers the confidence that we can deliver a silicon-carbon anode material at a capital intensity and $/kg price which is feasible for mass-automotive market adoption,” Jordaan said.