EGN NEWS DESK
Form Energy simply hit a funding milestone few startups attain, saying a $405 million Series F financing spherical on Wednesday that brings its complete funding to greater than $1.2 billion.
That’s a lot of cash for a novel long-duration power storage startup. But it’s commensurate with the problem it has set for itself — utilizing the chemistry that causes iron to rust to construct utility-scale techniques able to cost-effectively storing power for as much as 100 hours.
It’s additionally one of many largest funding rounds for a cleantech agency in what has been a sluggish yr for fundraising.
Long-duration power storage has proved to be a troublesome nut for firms to crack. The class of applied sciences goals to absorb wind and solar energy and retailer it for days and even weeks on finish, providing a technique to plug the uncommon however important gaps in electrical energy provide that may happen as energy grids shift towards 100 p.c carbon-free electrical energy.
Though Form’s expertise stays unproven at a utility scale, the corporate has managed to realize extra industrial traction than most long-duration power storage startups and is at present engaged on a number of industrial deployments.
The startup’s newest funding spherical, led by new traders T. Rowe Price and GE Vernova, includes a who’s who of cleantech financiers with a penchant for trickier sectors like long-duration power storage.
Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Prelude Ventures, MIT’s Engine Ventures, and utility-backed funding fund Energy Impact Partners participated within the spherical. Other traders included TPG Rise Climate, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Funds, Coatue, NGP, Temasek, GIC, Claure Group, Gigascale Capital, Blindspot Ventures, and VamosVentures.
Alongside the brand new funding, Form Energy additionally introduced a memorandum of understanding with GE Vernova, General Electric’s power spinout, “concerning areas of strategic collaboration to assist Form Energy because it continues to ramp manufacturing operations and industrial deployments of its iron-air battery techniques.”
