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Form Energy raises $405 million for its multi-day iron-air batteries
10/14/2024
The U.S.-based long duration energy storage startup has raised more than $1.2 billion to date, making it one of the top-funded players in the space.
Form Energy is looking to accelerate the expansion of its 100-hour iron-air battery system manufacturing in the US on the back of a $405 million Series F financing round.
Announcing the major funding milestone on Wednesday, the company said this brings its total funding to date to more than $1.2 billion.
The startup’s latest funding round, led by T. Rowe Price, has also seen GE Vernova as a new investor. Existing investors Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, TPG Rise Climate, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Funds, Coatue, Energy Impact Partners (EIP), MIT’s The Engine Ventures, NGP, Temasek, GIC, Prelude Ventures, Claure Group, Gigascale Capital, Blindspot Ventures, and VamosVentures have also participated in the round.
In addition to participating in the Series F financing round, GE Vernova and Form Energy have signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding areas of strategic collaboration to support Form Energy as it continues to ramp manufacturing operations and commercial deployments of its iron-air battery systems.
“After seven years of dedicated R&D, product engineering, testing, and validation, and most recently trial production, our 100-hour iron-air battery system is ready for serial production and commercial deployment,” Form Energy CEO and co-founder Mateo Jaramillo said in a press release.
He went on to add that the latest funding round will go toward “accelerating the expansion of our multi-day battery manufacturing, creating new jobs, and upskilling a manufacturing workforce, as well as advancing the development of a more efficient and scalable process for low-cost green iron production.”
In May 2023, Form Energy broke ground on Form Factory 1, its first high-volume manufacturing facility in Weirton, West Virginia, at the site of the former steel plant. A year later, the company completed the construction of the 550,000-square-foot facility, installed new manufacturing equipment, and initiated trial production of its iron-air batteries last month.
With over 900 employees, including 300 at Form Factory 1, the company plans to grow its team further as it ramps up high-volume production in the coming months. By 2028, Form Factory 1 is projected to have more than 1 million square-feet of manufacturing space, employ at least 750 people, and have an annual manufacturing capacity of 500 MW, at minimum.
Form Energy’s technology is rather unique in the energy storage space. It relies on abundant materials such as iron, water, and air. Its basic principle of operation is reversible rusting: while the battery is discharging, it breathes in oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust; while the battery is charging, the application of an electrical current converts the rust back to iron, and the system breathes out oxygen.
An iron-air battery is said to be inherently safe, featuring non-toxic electrodes and iron anodes submerged in a water-based, non-flammable electrolyte, therefore bearing no risk of thermal runaway.
While yet unproven at scale, the demand for Form factory’s technology has been strong. The company is already developing projects on several sites, including the 85 MW/8.5 GWh project in the US state of Maine – the largest battery by storage capacity in the world – as well as a 15 MW/1.5 GWh system in Georgia and a 10 MW/1 GWh development in Minnesotta.
Outside the US, Form Energy’s technology has been proposed for a 1 GWh system in Ireland, in what could be Europe’s first large-scale, iron-air project.
In August, the company broke ground on its first commercial project – a 1.5 MW/150 MWh pilot system – located in Cambridge, Minnesota.