Ilika secures $8m investment

18th October 2016

Ilika plc

Anna Flockett

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It has been announced that Ilika has secured an equity investment of $58m to further progress the commercialisation and development of its Stereax solid state battery technology. Launched this year, Ilika’s Stereax M250 solid state battery is a new, miniaturised battery for IoT devices, designed to address the key challenge of always-on, self-charging energy storage. The battery enables smaller, energy-dense batteries to accelerate IoT products to market.

Solid state batteries are key to powering wireless sensors as they can be used in conjunction with all current energy harvesting technologies, and can also match the energy needs of low power transmitter electronics. Many use cases require devices which draw power in short bursts to collect and transmit data, whilst being able to support a wide range of environment temperatures.

Relative to standard lithium ion batteries, solid state batteries have ten times lower leakage currents and up to four times longer life spans of up to ten years. They can also be integrated with other electronic components, keeping the size of the device to a minimum.

Applications where Stereax battery technology is particularly useful are those requiring a millimetre-scale footprint, those needing elevated temperature operation, or others combined with energy harvesting technology delivering low currents. Examples include bioelectronics devices, systems on a chip for industrial applications and transport deployments using energy harvesting rather than long cable runs.

Ilika continues to build on the technology platform established with the Stereax M250. The roadmap comprises three performance paths, covering miniaturisation, increased energy capacity/footprint and operation at elevated temperatures.

Graeme Purdy, Ilika CEO, said: "This $8 million has been raised from a mixture of new and existing investors who have been encouraged by the commercialisation progress made since the Stereax M250 product launch at the end of April. This investment will strengthen Ilika’s balance sheet during the current negotiations and support the development of further Stereax products scheduled for launch over the next 18 months”.