The organic flow battery company Rivus Batteries recently secured a €525,000 infusion of capital. According to InnoEnergy PhD School alumnus, CEO and founder Dr. Cedrik Wiberg, the capital injection will help the company to scale-up its electrolyte production and install their first full scale pilot batteries with customers.

 

Batteries are needed to store renewable energy – it’s not always windy when you want it to be and the same with the hours of sunshine. Rivus’ idea is for gigantic batteries to be placed at solar and wind farms: “Our vision is to add a critical element to Europe’s energy transition away from fossil fuels to predominantly renewable energy”.

The fresh capital comes mainly from two new investors: xista science ventures from Austria and NAVCAP from Sweden. EIT InnoEnergy also follows-up on an earlier investment in Rivus. In addition, Rivus Batteries has secured two projects with the Swedish Energy Agency and a spot in the new Vinnova Deep Tech Accelerator Program worth in total €545,000 to further develop its solution.

“We are entering an exciting growth phase, and the capital injection helps us take rapid steps towards the market. Metal-free batteries are urgently needed to help cover the rapidly growing demand for energy storage.”

 

There is a race going on globally in this sector, no one has yet launched a commercial product and American startups receive massive support in the USA. Rivus has developed its technology in stealth mode in Sweden and is close to developing a first pre-commercial product in the lab, at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, where the company is based.

 

“The increased need for electricity combined with ever increasing renewable energy production and an increasingly uncertain electricity supply has put energy storage into the centre of the energy transition. The advantages of Rivus’ solution are many,” says CEO Dr. Cedrik Wiberg.

“The combination of technological progress that Rivus made with initially very limited resources in an important and potentially game-changing field, as well as the excellent team, made Rivus such an attractive investment for us.”