CENS Materials, a portfolio company of INCUBIT, Elbit Systems’ deep-tech incubator, completes an investment round of $1.5 million led by the UK based investor Vincent Tchenguiz
Israeli CENS develops a groundbreaking nanotechnology that significantly improves performance of batteries used in electric vehicles, drones and solar energy storage plants. CENS’ solution will help extend the driving range without additional battery cost and shorten the charging time by tens of percents
CENS, a portfolio company of Incubit Ventures announced that it has completed an investment round of $1.5 million, led by the UK based investor Vincent Tchenguiz (Consensus Group), a prominent foreign investor in Israeli hi-tech. The company was established at Incubit, Elbit Systems’ technological incubator, investing in early stage, deep-tech startups.
CENS has developed a proprietary, industrial process, that significantly increases the battery’s capacity and cuts the charging time, both are critical elements for the electric cars industry, the drone industry, and any other device powered by batteries. CENS’ solution is based on a material called CNT, carbon nanotubes, whose contribution to electrical conductivity is well known, but to date, no one has succeeded to implement this material into batteries. The company’s industrial process can be integrated in the existing industry, with no change of infrastructure required, thus offering a dramatic improvement of the battery capacity, and its charging time, with no additional costs thanks to the very small quantity (less than 1%) of carbon nanotubes needed. Also, the technology enables the manufacturing of batteries that do not contain cobalt, a harmful, toxic, and expensive material.
The world has not yet widely shifted to electric cars, it is a race that involves many players. The bottleneck lies in the energy capacity of the batteries and their cost, which is a strategic goal for all the major industry players: battery manufacturers, car makers, and raw materials manufacturers. Various technologies are used today, while the leading and the most common technology is lithium-ion. A key advantage of CENS is that it does not change this existing technology; on the contrary – CENS solution is based on lithium ion, which makes it very easy for manufacturers to integrate it. However, the company offers a breakthrough in the battery capacity and its cost. Academic efforts have been made in the past to infiltrate carbon nanotubes into batteries, but none has achieved an effective dispersion without significantly changing the price.
The company’s CEO and founder, Michael Bromfman, is an expert in Nanotechnology. “The investment will serve us to move forward, from the development phase to the pre-commercial phase and establish a semi-industrial plant capable to manufacture premium batteries with enhanced capacity that will be supplied to top OEMs and Tier 1 in the EV industry, with whom the company is already in business relations”, says Bromfman. “Our unique, deep research based technology, has the potential to disrupt the market and remove the bottleneck in the electric car industry – the battery performance and cost”.
“We believe in the critical need that CENS answers. A technology that enables to double the driving range of electric cars without charging, to extend drones flight time, and to reach better performance of solar power storage plants, is a significant breakthrough developed by the company, which could boost the consumption of more green energy in the world”, said Vincent Tchenguiz.
Yehoshua Yehuda, EVP and CTO at Elbit Systems, Incubit Chairman: “CENS solution is groundbreaking, addressing the growing demand for low cost, effective electrical energy. We believe this breakthrough has a wide range of applications, among others in the defense sector which strives for innovative energy solutions, including, for example for the networked warfighter.