Skeleton Technologies, a Tallinn-based company that develops and produces ultracapacitors – extremely powerful energy storage devices – has received €13 million in new investment led by FirstFloor Capital, a Malaysian venture capital investment firm specialising in funding high-growth technology companies.
Skeleton Technologies started to grow in 2009, when, after years of development work, the young entrepreneurs, Taavi Madiberk and Oliver Ahlberg, decided to take the technology created by Tartu scientists into production. By 2016, the company had become one of Europe’s leading ultracapacitor manufacturers.
Ultracapacitors are high-power energy storage devices with more than 100 times increased power density across more than a million life-cycles, compared with the best battery technologies.
The company claims that Skeleton’s devices are the only ultracapacitors to use a patented graphene-based material in their manufacture, allowing them to deliver twice the energy density and five times the power density of their competitors.
Madiberk said the firm sees the large investment as a breakthrough moment, marking an expansion beyond Europe and into the emerging markets of Asia.
“It was Tesla founder Elon Musk who made the bold predication that it would be ultracapacitors rather than batteries that will be the breakthrough for future technologies like electric vehicles. Our company is making that future happen,” Madiberk said in a statement.
Skeleton also plans to use the funding to further optimise electrode and cell design to allow for higher capacitance and working voltages of its products.
Fahmi Hamzah, the executive director of FirstFloor Capital, said in a statement that “Skeleton Technologies has great potential to become a turnkey energy storage system specialist.”
The Malaysian investment brings the total financing for Skeleton to €26.7 million.
Previously, the Estonian manufacturer had developed high-performance ultracapacitor solutions for the European Space Agency. A project to develop the next generation of airships for industrial cargo applications with French firm, Flying Whales, is in the pipeline.
Industry analysts estimate the ultracapacitor market will be worth €7.5 billion by 2025.
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