Swiss battery specialist 8inks raises three million euros

The spinoff 8inks from Schlieren, Switzerland, has developed a multi-layer coating technology for lithium-ion battery production. Founderful and other investors are now giving 8inks three million euros to scale up the already patented technology.

The developers at 8inks claim to be able to overcome the current challenges of battery technology with their manufacturing platform: With a multi-layer process technology that should be able to produce both new and established battery designs and materials up to ten times faster, “cost savings of 30 per cent on average can be achieved”, the company, which was spun off at the end of 2022, said in a press release.

The ETH Zurich spinoff has developed a battery production process based on techniques used in the paper and photography industries. A multi-layer coating process is intended to reduce both investment and operating costs. At the same time, the process significantly improves the energy density of the batteries. 8inks claims to be able to strike a balance between production requirements and battery performance. The patented production technology has already been validated in the 8inks laboratory and in an external test facility. The capital now raised from the completed pre-seed financing round will be used to quantify the levers of the technology in a pilot plant on an industrial scale.

“The early adopter phase in the field of electromobility is over,” says 8inks CEO Paul Baade. “Now it’s about reaching the masses. Batteries are still not powerful enough for this and are too expensive. With 8inks, we have developed a lever to solve this problem through innovation in production technology. Our technology makes batteries more powerful and production cheaper.”

Lukas Weder, Partner at Founderful, added: “The market for e-cars and the associated market for batteries is developing rapidly: 8inks is operating in a trillion-dollar growth market. We are convinced that the founding team’s innovation in production technology will make a decisive contribution to the mass production of solid-state batteries and thus to the mobility revolution.”

In addition to Founderful and Übermorgen Ventures, Angel Invest, another.vc, Venture Kick, the ETH Foundation and business angels also contributed fresh capital to the pre-seed financing totalling almost three million euros.

Source: Info via email, moneycab.com (in German)