Sion Power, which uses compression on EV batteries, gets funding from LG Energy, others

US battery technology startup Sion Power announced the company has raised $75 million in Series A funding.

The round was led by South Korean battery manufacturing giant LG Energy Solution (to be executed through LG Technology Ventures and Bricks Capital Management) and repeat participation from Euclidean Capital, the company said in a release. Sion Power also secured new investment from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's family office, Hillspire.

The company, which is developing next-generation batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) through proprietary technology Licerion, said it will use the new capital for technical and market validation of its technology and manufacturing lithium-metal cells.

Licerion uses compression in a lithium metal battery to offer twice the energy in the same size and weight, compared to a traditional lithium-ion battery. The batteries, at up to 500 Wh/kg, are produced at scale in large-format cells. The technology has been successfully demonstrated in large capacity battery cells (up to 20Ah), and development is under way to expand the technology's capacity to 56Ah capacity.

Sion Power CEO Tracy Kelley said in a statement: "Every carmaker now has an EV strategy with billions being invested in the market. Our technology is appealing because Licerion directly addresses the anxiety that consumers feel about finding chargers by delivering up to twice the energy as conventional lithium-ion. The support from our investors is a testament to how mature our technology is and the value of our approach towards enabling lithium-metal cells."