Brill Power, an Oxford University spin-out company, announced the conclusion of its Series A round raising US$10.5m to support its mission to make batteries smarter, cleaner, safer and longer-lasting.
The round was led by two new blue-chip investors – Legal & General Capital and Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital Programme and supported by all of Brill’s existing investors including Oxford Science Enterprises, Oxford Investment Consultants and Oxford University. Shell Ventures and Climate KIC have also become shareholders.
Brill Power is pioneering the development of a new way to manage batteries that suffers none of the limitations of previous methods. Brill’s optimized Active Loading method increases battery life by up to 60% and allows used batteries to discharge up to 46% more energy through a proprietary combination of hardware and intelligent software.
Brill Power’s Active Loading method represents a step-change for BMS through proprietary algorithms that determine the state of health and power capability of every parallel-connected cell block in the battery with novel control circuitry to regulate the electric current accordingly. Stronger cell blocks are exposed to higher currents and weaker ones to lower currents. This ensures that every joule of energy is extracted from each individual cell during every discharge cycle. As a result, no single cell becomes the limiting factor in the energy storage capacity, power capability or lifetime of the battery system.
Brill Power’s technology is a key enabler for battery systems in applications including commercial & industrial buildings, on and off-grid energy storage, residential homes and electric vehicles in a battery market estimated to be worth $400 billion by 20301. Brill’s solutions are consistent with their new investor interests in partnering with enablers of clean energy generation, including intermittent renewables, as part of the wider shift to clean infrastructure, businesses and technologies.
Brill Power’s plans following the investment round are threefold. The company will double its team size across both engineering and commercial operations, while expanding its product range for both static energy storage and for the world’s largest battery market – electric vehicles – based on successful projects completed with Aston Martin, AMTE Power and Delta Cosworth. Finally, the funding will support the next phase in the development of the company’s data platform (BrillAnalytics) to help customers monitor and predict battery safety, health and performance data remotely.
Dr Christoph Birkl, Brill Power’s CEO said: “Thanks to our exceptional team at Brill, we have made great strides over the past two years. We have a ground-breaking commercial product in the marketplace and a pipeline of new developments and products to address the stationary energy storage and automotive markets. Our progress and our potential has attracted an impressive cadre of both existing and new investors. We are delighted to welcome Legal & General Capital and Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital on board while also enjoying the continued support of all our existing investors for the important journey ahead of us. We now have the means to act on the opportunity to offer the market a step-change in improvements for zero-emissions technologies – for the benefit of our investors, our customers and also the community we serve.”
