Woodinville-based battery tech company Group14 Technologies has filed a complaint against British competitor Nexeon alleging trade secret theft.
In the complaint, filed in September in the Western District of Washington court, Group14 said Nexeon violated a nondisclosure agreement from 2016 that stemmed from a potential partnership. The complaint also said Nexeon stole trade secrets gained from trips to Group14 facilities.
"Nexeon sought patents in its own name, reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in investment on the purported strength of its IP portfolio," Group14 said in the complaint. "To permit such conduct would reward theft and deter companies from exploring potentially fruitful collaborations, as Group14 believed it was doing with Nexeon."
According to the complaint, Nexeon looked to acquire Group14 in 2017, but the deal fell through because Group14 felt the offer was short of its long-term value. Although Nexeon called off the acquisition in 2018, the company then tried to reach a licensing agreement with Group14, but Group14 declined.
The complaint accused Nexeon of deciding in 2018 to file patent applications using Group14's trade secrets, which Group14 found out about after the patents were published in September 2019. Group14 said it "was shocked given the significant amount of confidential, proprietary, trade secret and novel information that had been provided to Nexeon under the NDA," and that Nexeon's new silicon anode material was stolen from Group14. Group14 is pushing for a jury trial, damages and an order to stop Nexeon from using its trade secrets.
Nexeon in December filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, noting that Group14 waited three years in between discovering the alleged trade theft and filing a complaint, making it hard to believe Group14 felt truly wronged. Rather, the motion said Group14 is trying to hinder Nexeon's business because Nexeon is achieving more commercial success than Group14.
"In addition, much of what Group 14 claims as a trade secret in its complaint is no secret at all. Group14 has openly and publicly disclosed huge amounts of information related to its alleged trade secrets in patent publications and other public disclosures," Nexeon said in the motion to dismiss.
Group14 was founded in 2015 and spun out of EnerG2 Technologies, a University of Washington startup founded in 2003. The company makes a silicon-based anode powder designed to replace the traditional graphite in today's batteries, with the goal of making batteries cheaper, smaller and longer-lasting. The company raised $614 million through an extended Series C round in 2022, and it raised an additional $100 million from the Department of Energy in October. Group14 is growing its presence in the central Washington city of Moses Lake, where it is building a facility with two manufacturing modules. The facility is expected to open in the second half of this year.
"It was a big decision for us to file a lawsuit. It was our last resort. If we have filed a lawsuit, you have to believe that we found the behavior to be particularly egregious," Rick Luebbe, Group14 co-founder and CEO, said in an emailed statement.
Nexeon, meanwhile, has offices in Oxfordshire, England, and Yokohama, Japan. The company has raised $331 million, according to Crunchbase. Nexeon is also using silicon to improve batteries, focusing on industries like electric vehicles and consumer electronics. Other competitors in the silicon-based battery space include Sila Nanotechnologies and OneD Battery Sciences.
