Eni Next, the corporate venturing arm of energy supplier Eni, has led a $40m series B round for Form Energy, a US-based energy storage technology spinout of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The round included MIT’s affiliate venture fund, The Engine, in addition to Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Capricorn Investment Group, Prelude Ventures and Macquarie Capital.
Founded in 2017 as Baseload Renewables, Form Energy is developing lithium-sulphur batteries that can be used to store energy from wind and solar energy sources to be used as baseload electricity, or to help manage peaks on electricity grids.
The capital will help fund creation of a megawatt-capacity prototype battery for commercial testing. Michael Skelly, a senior adviser at financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard that specialises in grid development, has joined the company’s board of directors.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Macquarie Capital and The Engine had joined oil and gas supplier Saudi Aramco to provide $9m for Form Energy in a series A round that closed in May 2018. The Engine had previously injected $2m in seed capital the year before.
Form Energy’s technology evolved from research pioneered by Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and his former graduate student William Woodford.
The pair set up the company with Marco Ferrara, a research affiliate of MIT who had co-founded solar project developer Solar Machines; Mateo Jaramillo, former director for energy storage at electric carmaker Tesla; and Ted Wiley, former president of circular economy think tank McDonough Innovation.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.