Supporting a £4.1million funding round to help transform EV battery charge times

Anaphite, a start-up company based in Bristol is working to develop materials for the next generation of low-cost batteries. The company has developed the technology to cut lithium-ion battery charging times in half and reduce manufacturing costs by 12%. Anaphite’s technology permits the incorporation of low-cost graphene into cathodes, which was previously hard to achieve, enabling faster charging rates. The second part of the technology is an innovative coating process, which removes the need for large coating ovens currently used in the battery cell manufacturing process.

What challenges did the client face?

The company was looking to raise a substantial “seed plus” funding round, with the company and its investors keen to complete the investment round quickly on a relatively tight timescale. Ashfords and Anaphite were able to work well together to prepare and finalise all documentation, gather input from all required parties, and get the investment over the line just before the company’s deadline.

Why did the client instruct Ashfords?

The team at Ashfords is established in providing expertise to scaling businesses and the team has regularly supported the company with a number of matters over the past few years.

How did we help the client?

The Ashfords team worked closely with Anaphite from the start of the funding process. We advised the company on the investment round, negotiated the documentation with investors and guided the parties through the completion process. Our extensive experience with equity funding enabled us to provide timely and useful advice to the company and the founder team throughout the process.

What was the outcome?

Anaphite successfully raised £4.1m in their “seed plus” round. The round was led by Elbow Beach Capital, and included Silicon Roundabout Ventures, Wealth Club, Blue Wire Capital, OION, Zero Carbon Capital, Climate VC and Deeptech Labs. Anaphite is in trials with a European EV battery manufacturer, which is testing its materials in their batteries — and hoping to be in commercial EV production lines by 2028.

For more information, please contact Scott Preece in our Corporate team.