Another battery tech company with ties to Moses Lake is raising money.
On Thursday, Palo Alto, California-based OneD Battery Sciences announced a $25 million Series C round. OneD in October 2021 began construction of pilot plants in Moses Lake, a small town in central Washington that is also playing host to battery tech companies Alameda, California-based Sila Nanotechnologies and Woodinville-based Group14.
"From day one, OneD has aimed to simplify silicon as the means to a completely new era of (electric vehicles). We believe that the winners of the EV race will be those who can effectively add more silicon to the battery cell in a way that doesn't disrupt existing supply chains and processes," CEO Vincent Pluvinage said in a release.
OneD puts silicon in anode battery cells with the goal of increasing energy density and creating smaller, more efficient battery packs. OneD says it does this by fusing silicon nanowires into the graphite found in batteries. Along with the fundraise, OneD on Thursday announced a research agreement with General Motors to potentially use OneD's technology in its EV battery platform, Ultium.
GM Ventures and Volta Energy Technologies both participated in OneD's Series C round.
Sila and Group14 both make a silicon-based anode powder designed to replace the graphite found in batteries. The companies aim to make batteries smaller, cheaper and longer-lasting, and although both companies are starting with consumer electronics, their larger ambitions center on EVs. Sila raised $590 million last year, while Group14 raised $400 million in May.
In May, Sila announced the purchase of a more than 600,000-square-foot facility in Moses Lake that will start production in the second half of 2024 and reach full production in the first half of 2025. Group14 is building a large-scale facility in Moses Lake slated to open in the second half of next year.
In addition to cheap electrical rates and having a strong industrial hub, Moses Lake is also home to REC Silicon, a polysilicon producer for the solar industry that makes a byproduct called silane. Silane is a crucial component to silicon-based battery technology like that of OneD, Sila and Group14.
The trade war with China forced the REC plant in Moses Lake to close in 2019, but a major investment earlier this year from the South Korean manufacturing company Hanwha Corp. led to a May announcement that REC will reopen the Moses Lake plant, with first production slated for late 2023 and full production expected in 2024.
REC previously told the Business Journal the company can produce silane for these battery tech companies through its Butte, Montana, facility, but producing the amount of silane needed for their EV ambitions will take more convincing.
"In order to build a plant, we have to have some additional assurance that we're going to have off-take. As these things start up, the worst thing we could do is isolate capacity to produce silane, build additional capacity to produce silane and then be sitting on an asset," REC's then-CEO James May said previously.
