In 2017, New Orleans-based Advano had raised roughly $800,000 total and was accepted in the well-known accelerator program Y Combinator. Fast forward a few years, and the New Orleans-based startup is making national news again.
With a long list of investors on board, Advano has announced the close of a Series A funding round totaling $18.5 million. Investors include the Data Collective, Future Shape, PeopleFund, SBI Material Innovation Fund, Thiel Capital, and Y Combinator.
Advano uses recycled silicon to increase the density of their lithium-ion batteries, making them smaller, longer lasting, and more cost effective. These batteries are used in everyday products such as cars and phones.
“No one has been able to solve four key issues concurrently: material expansion, cycle-life, cost, and drop-in manufacturing scalability,” said Tony Fadell, an investor and new strategic partner for the company. “Advano’s battery experts are the first to successfully tackle them all.”
“We’re not trying to make the best battery in the world and figuring out how to make trillions of them. We’re trying to economically improve the trillions of batteries that will exist,” company co-founder and CEO Alexander Girau told CNBC.