Dutch deeptech start-up Delft IMP secures €10 million series A funding with technology that radically extends battery life

Sandwater, a Nordic venture capitalist, and Invest-NL have agreed to a €10 million investment in Delft IMP. This allows Delft IMP to accelerate their nanocoating process to an industrial scale enabling more durable batteries and other sustainable applications. Delft University has published a press release with the news.

The investors in this Series A are Sandwater and Invest-NL. Sandwater has a broad portfolio of investments aiming to enable progress together with its founders. Invest-NL is the government-owned impact investor supporting innovation and sustainability in the Netherlands.

Delft IMP has unique expertise in developing ultra-thin coatings on powders and has the proprietary technology to produce these materials at scale. The ultra-thin nanocoatings protect, for example, battery powder from the harsh surroundings and thus enhances the lifetime of the battery. The Delft IMP application technology enables them to control the process to optimize the film thickness and reduce the use of scarce raw materials.

The real benefit of the Delft IMP technology comes from the elegant way they are able to scale up the atomic layer deposition (ALD) based coating process to an industrial scale. This makes it possible to deliver this benefit cost-effective to a wide range of battery applications, supporting the electrification of mobility. Coating the battery powders provides the flexibility to encounter this benefit in current and also future generations.

Delft IMP is not your next battery company, but instead, they work together with leading battery companies to extend the lifetime of batteries and reduce the consumption of scarce minerals. This facilitates the sustainable use of raw materials, and will also bring radical performance improvements to other technologies such as electrolyzers and fuel cells.

“We are solving the big problems in the world, by going very small: We are applying ultra-thin coatings on powder material and enable production at scale with a unique technology originating from the Delft University of Technology,” said Dr. Roderik Colen, CEO of Delft IMP. Torkel Engeness (Sandwater) “We at Sandwater are in the market for the radical solutions of tomorrow. Sandwater believes that active ownership enables progress and is looking forward to sharing the journey together with Invest NL and Delft IMP”.