Safire Technology Group, a Knoxville, TN-based Li-ion battery technologies company, raised $8M in Pre-Series A funding.
The round, which brought total funding to $11m, was led by Canaan Partners, with participation from Correlation Ventures, Higher Life Ventures, Ajinomoto Co., Inc., Automotive Ventures, Outpost Ventures, Potomac Angel Capital, and MaC Venture Capital. Canaan’s Hrach Simonian will join co-founders John Lee and Mike Grubbs on the board of directors.
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.
Led by CEO John Lee, Safire Group is developing advanced Li-ion battery technologies for government and automotive markets. Its core technology, SAFe Impact Resistant Electrolyte (SAFIRE™), is a patented and proprietary drop-in additive for Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries that prevents fire through an instantaneous liquid-to-solid transformation upon kinetic impact, such as an electric vehicle (EV) crash or ballistic event.
Invented after nearly a decade of research and development by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), SAFIRE is currently being deployed by the company in four distinct use cases across broad domains: a ruggedized electric motorcycle, a rapidly deployable sensor tower, an unmanned ground vehicle, and multifunctional body armor.
FinSMEs
19/09/2024