Lyten has announced it has raised $200 million as part of its over-subscribed Series B funding round, to scale manufacturing and commercialize its first three product lines: Lithium-Sulfur batteries, lightweight composites, and next generation IoT sensors.
The round is led by Prime Movers Lab, a venture capital firm focused on investments in breakthrough scientific startups and has $1.2B in assets under management. Prime Movers Lab is joined with significant participation from strategic investors and sector leaders Stellantis (previously announced), FedEx Corporation, Honeywell, and Walbridge Aldinger Company. Additional strategic, venture capital and individual investors make up the remainder of the round.
This latest round of funding brings total equity investment in Lyten to more than $410 million since the company was founded in 2015.
“We are excited to welcome our Series B investors, each a leader in their respective markets and committed to achieving aggressive net zero targets for their industry. The influx of strategic investors reflects the evolution of Lyten from its early days of developing a first-of-its-kind supermaterial to now collaborating with industry leaders to bring disruptive, decarbonizing applications to market, utilizing the differentiated properties of Lyten 3D Graphene™,” said Dan Cook, Lyten’s co-founder and CEO. “Our investors provide more than financial resources; they provide guidance and expertise to help ensure Lyten applications address the critical needs of a wide range of industries, including automotive, transportation, defense, aerospace, manufacturing, energy, and construction.”
Lyten’s mission is to create a materials platform to deliver breakthrough applications that enable the largest greenhouse gas emitting sectors on the planet to achieve net zero without compromising on performance, profitability or customer experience. “We believe new materials hold the key to delivering fundamentally better-performing products that will also deliver gigaton scale decarbonization impacts. In every industry, materials limitations are a barrier to profitably reducing emissions and that is exactly where we are deploying 3D Graphene,” said Cook.
Zia Huque, General Partner at Prime Movers Lab, and member of the Lyten Board of Directors, describes why Prime Movers Lab invested in Lyten: “Lyten stands out as a unique company that combines a truly novel materials technology with an extraordinarily talented management team capable of developing and commercializing multiple applications. Its first three applications, Lithium-Sulfur batteries, Composites, and IoT Sensors, each deliver capabilities into the largest industries in the world that would simply not be possible without their proprietary 3D Graphene.”
In June, Lyten announced the opening of its first Lithium-Sulfur battery automated pilot plant in San Jose, CA. They are reportedly on target to produce commercial cells by year-end 2023 and begin shipping to early adopting customers for revenue in early 2024. The remaining space on the pilot line is expected to be allocated before the end of the year, including allocation to Stellantis and additional auto OEMs for cell testing. Lyten intends to break ground on scaled-up 3D Graphene and Lithium-Sulfur battery manufacturing facilities in 2024 in the US. Lyten targets a fully domestic supply chain to deliver Lithium-Sulfur batteries with greater energy density than lithium-ion but without NMC (nickel, manganese, cobalt) or graphite.
“Lyten’s materials platform is a key investment for Stellantis Ventures, in line with our Dare Forward 2030 goal to accelerate deployment of innovative, customer-centric technologies,” said Carlos Tavares, Stellantis CEO. “Specifically, Lyten’s Lithium-Sulfur battery has the potential to be a key ingredient in enabling mass-market EV adoption globally, and their material technology is equally well-positioned to help reduce vehicle weight, which is all necessary for our industry to achieve carbon net zero goals.”
Lyten is working with Stellantis, FedEx, the U.S. Government, and additional industry leaders to deliver new products, bringing to market both lightweight and multifunctional composites and ultra-high sensitivity sensing networks in automotive, logistics, aviation, and defense sectors. Lyten targets to deliver its first commercial composites application to customers by year-end.
Lyten’s 3D Graphene and its applications are initially being produced on its 145,000-square-foot campus in Silicon Valley and Lyten is actively pursuing expansion opportunities in the US and internationally. Cook added, “Enabling fully domestic supply chains and manufacturing is a core strategy for Lyten, especially for our Lithium-Sulfur batteries. We have a battery chemistry and expert team that is uniquely positioned to target both a 100% domestically sourced and manufactured battery and the lowest carbon footprint EV battery on the market.”