Investment to scale E-Zinc’s long duration energy storage technology and creating benefits to Ontario
Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC) was first introduced to e-Zinc in late 2018 when the company was looking for seed funding to scale up from its lab scale prototype. Founded in 2012, e-Zinc was initially a spin-out of the University of Toronto Entrepreneurship Community with support from MaRS Discovery District. BIC became the first investor beyond friends and family for e-Zinc. As part of this investment, BIC also worked to provided technical support for the company through its Centre for Commercialization of Sustainable Chemistry Innovation (COMM SCI). To date, BIC has made a total of two investments in e-Zinc since 2020 with the company raising more than $45M in additional financing between 2020 and 2024.
In 2018, e-Zinc demonstrated through a Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) project that a 50-watt air-zinc battery could act as long-term storage for solar energy. e-Zinc was looking to scale the technology to a 100-watt cell and improve its system. e-Zinc faced technical challenges to scale both the battery and the system. However, the company always had a strong team in place and have always been well supported by academia, applied-research partners and funders.
BIC’s first investment was made in early 2020 when the company closed its seed round. This investment would help the company scale the technology to 100 watts and beyond. After thorough technical due diligence, BIC recommended that e-Zinc engage Kingston Process Metallurgy (KPM) to work on improving e-Zinc’s system responsible for filtering the electrolyte. The company heeded the advice and has since formed a good working relationship with KPM. This seed round also allowed e-Zinc to setup multiple projects with industry partners to support the acquisition of field-testing data, further validating its technology to build investor confidence.
In 2022, BIC’s second investment was made as a scaling investment, where the company raised a Series A of over $30M. This round would allow the company to execute the projects it had put in place and build out scaled production. BIC had been active in supporting e-Zinc’s growth with investment and critical technical advice and had seen the technical progress that the company had made both on the cathode and electrolyte. Since its first investment, BIC has seen several key industrial partners sign on and support the company’s validation and growth. It was a great opportunity for BIC to support an innovative company that was making steady progress towards commercialization. Notable investors from this most recent investment round include Toyota Ventures and the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).
e-Zinc presented as a company that had strong leadership, a technology that was innovative and disruptive but also in need of critical investment, technical support and business guidance to guarantee successful scale up. As Canada’s only green chemistry accelerator with a unique model of identifying, validating, investing and providing critical early-stage technical support and guidance, BIC was instrumental in e-Zinc’s early success.
e-Zinc recently closed a Series A2 round in which it secured more than $40M in financing, led by Evok Innovations and including Export Development Canada (EDC), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and several other existing shareholders.
For more information please contact:
Meaghan Seagrave Fiona McDonald
Executive Director Marketing and Communications Manager
Bioindustrial Innovation Canada Bioindustrial Innovation Canada
Email: mseagrave@bincanada.ca Email: fmcdonald@bincanada.ca
About FedDev Ontario
For 15 years, the Government of Canada, through FedDev Ontario, has worked to advance and diversify the southern Ontario economy through funding opportunities and business services that support innovation, growth and job creation in Canada’s most populous region. The Agency has delivered impressive results, which can be seen in southern Ontario businesses that are creating innovative technologies, improving productivity, growing revenues, creating jobs, and in the economic advancement of communities across the region. Learn more about the impacts the Agency is having in southern Ontario by exploring our investment profiles, our Southern Ontario Spotlight, and FedDev Ontario’s X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
About e-Zinc
e-Zinc is a purpose-driven energy storage solutions company based in Toronto, Canada. Its unique zinc-based long-duration energy storage technology is enabling a reliable transition away from fossil fuel powered energy sources and providing the platform for the world’s energy markets to be fully powered by renewable energy. By utilizing zinc as the base metal in its technology, e-Zinc delivers a product that holds energy for multiple days, and can safely and reliably perform in the world’s harshest environments. In addition, zinc is light on impact to the planet, readily available, and inexpensive because of its abundance, ubiquity and recyclability. www.e-zinc.ca.
About Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC)
Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC) is a nationally focused not-for-profit business accelerator that provides critical strategic investment, advice, and services to business developers of clean, green, and sustainable technologies.
BIC focuses on critical strategic capital investment in SMEs with compelling business plans where innovation in science and engineering can bring about major advances in sustainable chemistry. Sustainable chemistry is playing an important role in the development of solutions to the impacts of climate change, peak oil, energy security, the need for safe water and the use of scarce natural resources. The increasing global demand for green and safer products offers the opportunity to create thousands of new jobs for Canadians.
For more information about Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC), visit www.bincanada.ca or connect directly with Executive Director, Meaghan Seagrave: mseagrave@bincanada.ca; www.linkedin.com/in/meaghanseagrave.