Swiss startup 8inks, based in Schlieren, Switzerland, has secured three million euros in funding from Founderful and other investors to scale up its multi-layer coating technology for lithium-ion battery production.
The company, spun off from ETH Zurich at the end of 2022, has developed a manufacturing platform aimed at addressing current challenges in battery technology. 8inks claims that their multi-layer process technology can produce both new and established battery designs and materials up to ten times faster, leading to an average cost savings of 30 percent.
Using techniques from the paper and photography industries, 8inks has created a battery production process that incorporates a multi-layer coating process to reduce both investment and operating costs while improving the energy density of the batteries. The company asserts that its technology strikes a balance between production requirements and battery performance. The patented production technology has already been validated in the 8inks laboratory and in an external test facility.
According to 8inks CEO Paul Baade, “The early adopter phase in the field of electromobility is over. Now it’s about reaching the masses. Batteries are still not powerful enough for this and are too expensive. With 8inks, we have developed a lever to solve this problem through innovation in production technology. Our technology makes batteries more powerful and production cheaper.”
Lukas Weder, Partner at Founderful, commented on the market potential, stating, “The market for e-cars and the associated market for batteries is developing rapidly: 8inks is operating in a trillion-dollar growth market. We are convinced that the founding team’s innovation in production technology will make a decisive contribution to the mass production of solid-state batteries and thus to the mobility revolution.”
In addition to Founderful and Übermorgen Ventures, Angel Invest, another.vc, Venture Kick, the ETH Foundation, and business angels have also contributed fresh capital to the pre-seed financing, totaling almost three million euros.
