Iontra Closes $67 Million Series B Following Additional $29 Million Investment to Accelerate Launch of Next-Gen Battery Charger MCU
Thought Leadership
Iontra’s charge control technology dramatically improves battery performance, cycle life, and safety, and eliminates plating due to fast charging without requiring battery cell or pack redesign
Iontra Inc, a Colorado-based innovator of next-generation battery charging technology, today announced it has raised an additional $29 million, bringing its Series B fundraising total to $67 million and $80 million raised to date. The additional Series B funding is led by prominent energy sector investors Volta Energy Technologies and Riverstone with additional support from Flag Asset Management and others. JPMorgan Chase assisted Iontra by acting as the placement agent for the financing.
This funding will advance Iontra’s position as a fabless supplier of a low-cost and small-footprint battery charger microcontroller (MCU) for battery-powered consumer products such as power tools, smartphones, hearables, and wearables. With Iontra’s MCU, product manufacturers will be able to integrate Iontra’s technology quickly and easily into their products to unlock the full potential of their batteries while reducing their Bill-of-Materials (BOM) costs. Iontra has opened chip design centers in Dallas and Bangalore, India to develop the initial MCU, and is collaborating with leading companies in the semiconductor supply chain to deliver a robust and reliable solution to customers.
To facilitate easy adoption in current battery-powered applications, Iontra offers a proven firmware solution that can run seamlessly on MCUs in products today. This enables Iontra’s customers, including those in industrial and electric vehicle (EV) applications, to realize superior battery performance with a significantly lower carbon footprint and reduced total cost of ownership.
Iontra: thinking outside the battery
Iontra’s unique advanced battery sensing and charging method is predictive and responsive, proactively protecting the battery while charging and discharging. Iontra eradicates the most concerning failure modes of batteries, plating and dendrite formation, which cause safety issues and limit battery performance.
Iontra is chemistry agnostic and proven to concurrently increase battery cycle life and charge speed by greater than 200 percent, support cold weather charging to -20°C, and create a safer charge overall, without changing the design of battery cells or packs.
“A more secure and sustainable energy future depends on the ability to maximize the use of the limited critical supply of battery minerals, materials, and other components, and Iontra helps to stretch those finite resources,” said Jeff Granato, President and CEO, Iontra. “Fulfilling our mission to remove the greatest hurdles facing this global energy transition, we are on the path to make Iontra’s affordable charging solution available to the industry and are encouraged by the excitement and continued support of our customers and investors.”
Solving a global challenge
Globally, private industry and governments are investing billions of dollars to research new battery technologies in support of electrification and a lower carbon footprint, representing one of the greatest energy transition efforts in history. However, these investments struggle to meet the urgent need to address short and long-term supply chain issues associated with the dramatic increase in the demand for battery minerals and materials, nor do they address plating and dendrite formation, as Iontra does.
Exacerbating these challenges, current charge management solutions from companies such as Analog Devices, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments are simply unable to deliver the kind of substantial performance improvements the market needs, and which Iontra’s approach enables.
Validation
Iontra’s breakthrough charge control technology is validated by approximately three million cycling hours performed in-house, testing dozens of battery types and the stability of the system under various charge conditions for quality, reliability, and durability. Iontra’s technology has also been tested by four independent research labs, including National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Novonix, UL Solutions, and University of Michigan.
“Incremental efficiency improvements will not address our climate and energy supply chain challenges, which is why Volta is again throwing its support behind Iontra’s transformational battery charge control technology,” said David Schroeder, CTO, Volta Energy Technologies. “The way batteries are charged has largely been overlooked in the race to improve battery performance, but Iontra represents a radically new, and proven, approach that policy makers and product manufacturers should pay close attention to.”
“The economic and environmental math is simple,” said John Staudinger, Managing Director, Riverstone. “By replacing the existing charge control chip in a product with Iontra’s at the same or lesser cost, the increase in cycle life, charge speed, and other performance benefits are realized instantly. Iontra not only improves your product but removes the need for vast amounts of new battery materials.”