The round saw the company raise $10.5m to support its efforts to make batteries smarter, cleaner, safer and longer-lasting as a critical element of the shift to zero emissions energy. The funding will support team growth and new product development to expand its presence in both static energy storage and the automotive sectors.
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 it says suffers none of the limitations of previous methods. Its 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.
The 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.
The company's technology is being described as a key enabler for battery systems in applications including commercial and industrial buildings, on and off grid energy storage, residential homes and electric vehicles in a battery market estimated to be worth $400 billion by 2030.
Brill Power said that it would use the investment to 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 be used to support the next phase in the development of its data platform (BrillAnalytics) to help customers monitor and predict battery safety, health and performance data remotely.
Commenting John Bromley, Managing Director, Clean Energy at Legal & General Capital said, "As we grow our climate and clean energy platform, investing in Brill Power is an exciting move into energy storage technologies that are crucial to enable an increase of renewables on the power grid, electrification of transport, and to power our homes, businesses and key infrastructure. Through extended lifetimes, improved safety, and waste reduction, Brill Power’s work is setting a new standard for how to store and use clean power to accelerate progress to our net zero emissions goals.”
Dr Christoph Birkl, Brill Power’s CEO said, “Our progress and our potential has attracted an impressive cadre of both existing and new investors. 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 wider community.”