Skeleton Technologies raises €29 Million in Series D extension

Skeleton Technologies recently announced the closing of a further €29 Million in its Series D round of funding. With this development, the total funding in Round D now amounts to €70.4 Million including the €41.3 Million announced in November 2020.

This round follows the company’s €51 Milion funding by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and the Free State of Saxony, announced in March 2021.

Taavi Madiberk, Skeleton's CEO, said: Unlike Tesla, Panasonic, or LG who use similar raw materials and compete in engineering, Skeleton has taken an alternative approach and has focused on vertical integration based on our proprietary curved graphene material. In terms of commercialization, we have started with a relatively niche market of supercapacitors and are now moving to Superbatteries, covering the high efficiency, high power niche of the battery market.

Madiberk continued: As the next step of our strategy, we aim at merging the long lifetime, fast charging supercapacitors and high energy, long-duration battery technology, to allow us to offer a more competitive long range EV battery than currently on the market or in the development pipeline.

Founded in 2009 by Oliver Ahlberg and Taavi Madiberk, Skeleton Technologies is a manufacturer and developer of high energy and power density ultracapacitors based on patented curved graphene material. Through the use of patented nanoporous carbide-derived carbon, or ‘curved graphene’, they have achieved breakthroughs in supercapacitor performance.

The company claims to deliver high power, high energy, reliable, and long-life storage solutions across industries, including automotive, transportation, grid, and industrial applications. Its ultracapacitors deliver twice the energy density and four times the power density offered by other manufacturers.

In a statement, Skeleton mentions, We work with some of the largest companies in the world from leading Tier One automotive firms and industrial equipment OEMs to truck fleet operators and aerospace prime contractors to decrease CO₂ emissions and fuel consumption, to improve power quality and protect equipment and infrastructure from power peaks, and to power electrification to fight climate change.

With a workforce of 200 team members, the company has three main locations for its operations: manufacturing in Großröhrsdorf, Saxony, (Germany); materials development in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Saxony-Anhalt (Germany); and electrical engineering in Tallinn, (Estonia).

The investors in this round include Marubeni Corporation and several early backers of the company such as MM Grupp and Harju Elekter, and more recent ones including European industrial investors and a group of Adyen alumni.

Taavi Madiberk, CEO & co-founder of Skeleton Technologies, said: Skeleton is growing fast and preparing for the next stage in the company’s lifecycle, which will include a significant scaling up of our operations, supported by strong growth in customer demand. The company is backed by leading industrial investors from Marubeni and InnoEnergy to the founders of Adyen".

He added: Most of the investors who joined the company at the end of last year not only participated in the round but wanted to increase their stake in the company. It is a great proof of trust generated by the good progress all these investors have seen over the last six months since becoming shareholders.