News

Infinite Power Solutions Raises $13 Million In Series B Financing

December 03, 2008 by Jeff Shepard

Infinite Power Solutions, Inc. (IPS) announced the completion of its Series B round of financing – raising $13 million in new capital to fund the ramp to volume production of its new THINERGY™ micro-energy cell (MEC™) product family. This recent financing augments the $35.7 million IPS raised in 2006 during its Series A round, which was used for the construction and build-out of what is described as the world’s first facility for volume manufacturing of solid-state, rechargeable thin-film batteries. Completed this year, this new facility will begin initial production shipments to customers this month.

Existing financial investors D. E. Shaw Ventures and Polaris Venture Partners led the Series B round, and were joined by the company’s other existing investors Core Capital Partners, Applied Ventures LLC (the venture capital arm of Applied Materials) and In-Q-Tel, along with a new, unnamed strategic investor. According to IPS, based on the strength of its innovative technology and products, the company has earned the distinction of being the recipient of the largest private equity investment for any new thin-film micro-battery technology over the past decade.

IPS’ THINERGY MECs are said to represent a new class of electronic components that are ultra-thin and flexible – said to provide nearly lossless energy storage along with unrivaled rechargeability, cycle life and power performance. IPS’ MECs are well suited for harvesting and storing all forms of ambient energy such as solar, thermal, RF, magnetic and vibration energy – which the company says provide a safe, reusable and clean energy source that can deliver a lifetime of power to electronic devices and systems.

"It is a testament to our compelling value proposition that even in today’s very difficult financing environment, we were able to raise all the capital we require for the global launch and ramp to volume production of our THINERGY micro-energy cell product family," commented Ray Johnson, IPS President and CEO. "The Series A funding two years ago allowed us to build out our production facility in Colorado, while this latest round allows us to expand our sales channels and increase our applications engineering resources to further support our customers and strategic partners. This will accelerate the widespread industry adoption of our technology and product solutions."

"IPS delivers a new energy storage solution enabling devices to power themselves autonomously with energy harvested from the surrounding environment," said Alexander Wong, a Managing Director of D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P., head of D. E. Shaw Ventures and an IPS director. "Because IPS’ products have a small and highly adaptable form factor, they provide a unique solution to powering devices ranging from wireless sensors to active RFIDs and real- time location systems."

Bob Metcalfe, General Partner at Polaris Venture Partners and IPS Director, added, "IPS’ thin-film micro-batteries, or as we like to call them, micro-energy cells, offer important new capabilities to the 10 billion embedded controllers shipped every year. With our robust rechargeable MECs, microcontrollers can be equipped with energy harvesting and wireless networking to find wide application in environmental sensing and energy management."