Next-Gen Battery Developer Ionic Materials Closes Down
Company said it had developed a novel polymer that would enable batteries using lithium metal.
The Takeaway
• Battery developer Ionic Materials shut down, idling more than 40 employees
• Company claimed it had developed a novel polymer that would enable batteries using lithium metal
• Closure is latest setback for a company hoping to make a next-generation EV battery
In another setback for a maker of a next-generation electric vehicle battery, Massachusetts battery developer Ionic Materials let go virtually its entire workforce on Tuesday, closed down and made plans to sell its equipment and other assets, according to multiple former employees. The company fired more than 40 employees, two of whom said they received two weeks of pay as severance.
Ionic attracted investor attention in 2018, claiming it had invented a novel polymer material that solved some of battery science’s most vexing problems with lithium metal, an exceptionally energy-dense material that—if it worked—could deliver long driving range. That year, Ionic raised $65 million in a Series C round—large by the standards of the time— from investors including Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi.
But by 2021, Ionic had failed to get the material to work beyond laboratory scale, and CEO Mike Zimmerman, the material’s inventor, was demoted and left the company later that year. Michael Edelman, a nano materials industry executive, replaced him as CEO. Edelman divided the company into two parts, one attempting to develop another type of battery, and the other working on a polymer film for use in 5G cellular devices.
Meanwhile, growth in EV industry sales slowed last year and investors chilled toward battery startups that were not yet earning revenue. In February, Kleiner Perkins provided Ionic an undisclosed sum as a bridge loan, according to PitchBook, but by this week, the company had all-but run out of cash, executives told employees Tuesday morning, the former employees said.
Neither Zimmerman nor Edelman responded to messages.
I spoke with Zimmerman in 2018. The material he described inventing seemed to solve everything that confounded rivals attempting to make lithium metal work in a battery: Even though it was a solid, lithium ions could move through it faster than they could through liquid, he told me. It was easy to handle and could be manufactured like plastic wrap, he said. And it operated at 5 volts, far beyond the capacity of most rival separators, which if true would enable a number of novel electrodes that didn’t work with lower voltages.
There was a clue that something was amiss when I asked about his plans to scale up a lithium-metal battery. He said that wasn’t his problem—he had invented the material. Now it was up to battery makers who licensed the material to put it into action.