Earth VC jointly backs US battery firm

Ho Chi Minh City-headquartered investment firm Earth Venture Capital has joined the latest financing round for Group14 Technologies, an American maker of lithium-silicon batteries.

The investment, led by a consortium of prominent investors including Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, Lightrock Climate Impact Fund, Moore Strategic Ventures, Oman Investment Authority, and Molicel, shows the immense potential of Group14's battery technology in advancing clean energy solutions.

“Group14's lithium-silicon battery technology is a game changer with a simple but powerful vision where airplanes make less noise, cars emit less carbon and nature gets more authentic,” Linh Nguyen, founding partner at Earth VC, said in a release on Thursday.

Earth VC, which claims to invest in startups that decarbonize the world, did not unveil its own investment in the U.S. battery producer. However, it had earlier leaked that it typically invests $300,000 to $3 million per startup.

According to CrunchBase, a platform tracking and monitoring investment firms, the latest round for Group14 is up to $214 million but CrunchBase does not have the numbers for each investor.

In addition to the financing round, Group14 has also unveiled plans for an additional BAM (Battery Active Material) factory as part of a group of joint venture plants in South Korea with SK Group, a leading global conglomerate. The forthcoming BAM factories will be engineered for modular manufacturing, with each module capable of annually producing around 2,000 tons of SCC55 (silicon carbon composite) – Group14’s main product.

“This expansion will further enhance Group14's production capacity,” Earth VC said.

SCC55 is a material that can be used for lithium-silicon batteries that Group14 claims can store five times more energy than graphite.

The company also plans to build a new factory for battery materials in South Korea together with industrial gas manufacturer SK Materials. Group14’s joint venture with SK Materials will help it make more batteries and form a stable supply chain.

The co-funding from Earth VC and other investors will also help Group14 grow its business, boost its research and development efforts, and sell its battery products faster, Earth VC said.

The venture capital investor was founded in October 2021 by Linh Nguyen and Tien Nguyen. Its portfolio shows startups like Singaporean firms Ampotech and AlterPacks, Hong Kong-based ClearBot, and Israeli firm Intelligent Traffic Control (ITC).

In a development related to SK Group, its member SKC Co., which manufactures advanced materials, signed a preliminary agreement this June with Vietnam's Hai Phong city to explore potential investment in advanced materials for secondary batteries, semiconductors, and other green sectors in the northern city.

Under the memorandum of understanding, SKC will consider ways to invest in Hai Phong as a site for the Korean firm’s expansion into high-tech materials.