Germany-based CUSTOMCELLS bags €60M to advance premium battery cells: Know more

Germany-based CUSTOMCELLS, a company that claims to make premium battery cells, announced on Thursday that it has raised €60M in a Series A round of funding.

After the funding, CUSTOMCELLS’ founders Leopold König and Torge Thönnessen will remain the company’s largest shareholders.

Investors supporting CUSTOMCELLS

The round was led by the European climate tech venture capitalist World Fund together with the Hamburg-based family office Abacon Capital.

The World Fund only makes investments in companies that work on climate technology with the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 100 million tonnes annually. The venture capitalist has created its own approach, known as Climate Performance Potential or CPP, to achieve this.

Existing investors Vsquared Ventures and Porsche also participated in the round. 

Daria Saharova, co-founder of World Fund, says, “Energy storage is the critical technology for the further expansion of renewable energy and thus for the further decarbonisation of the global economy. CUSTOMCELLS has the opportunity to enable the disruption of aviation and thus rapidly decarbonise the entire industry.”

Capital utilisation

CUSTOMCELLS aims to lead the global premium battery market and says it will use the funds to strengthen its position in the electrification of aircraft and develop competitive advantages using a first-to-market strategy. This comprises battery cells that are much more powerful than those of competitors and are approved by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Dirk Abendroth, CEO of the CUSTOMCELLS Group, says, “Our goal is to create and shape a new premium segment in the international battery cell market. This includes next-generation battery cells that are tailor-made to meet the needs of our customers. CUSTOMCELLS is set to become a global player – a major premium brand in its own right in the global battery cell business.”

Additionally, CUSTOMCELLS plans to further expand its R&D efforts to accelerate its technical advantage. In particular, a total of 50 patents will be filed in 2022, and these will be further extended in the years that follow, says the company.

About CUSTOMCELLS

CUSTOMCELLS is a spin-off of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and has been engaged in the research and mass manufacture of “state-of-the-art” lithium-ion battery cells for more than a decade. From development to certification, series manufacturing to recycling, the company works throughout the whole value chain.

In addition to a number of patents and licences, CUSTOMCELLS also has a large number of global affiliations with top universities, research centres, and R&D organisations. The company develops within the framework of “electromobility of tomorrow” for leading manufacturers of the automotive industry and claims to be a cell expert in the pertinent fields of safety, aviation, and medical technology as well as the chemical and oil and gas sectors.