Battery diagnostics: fresh money for volytica diagnostics

The battery diagnostics specialist volytica diagnostics, based in Dresden, has closed a financing round worth millions of euros and added the institutional investor Atlantic Labs to its shareholder base. The money will go towards the development of further business areas and the expansion of sales.

volytica diagnostics was founded in 2019 as a spin-off of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. The financing round that has now been concluded is the company’s second financing since the spin-off. The company does not specify the amount of the “million euro sum” in its announcement. It merely states that the round was carried out with the participation of the existing shareholders FTTF Fraunhofer-Technologie-Transfer Fonds and Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Sachsen (via the Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen TGFS) as well as Atlantic Labs, InnoEnergy SE (operator of the European Battery Alliance EBA250) and private individuals.

According to volytica diagnostics, the company focuses on safe and easy-to-integrate battery diagnostics solutions based on decades of research by the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI. According to the Dresden-based company, its main customers are groups and companies in the automotive, commercial vehicle and capital goods sectors, their suppliers as well as banks, insurers and lessors.

Specifically, the company’s technology enables live monitoring of battery systems, which “drastically increases the service life and thus the economic efficiency of battery applications” and “enables end-customer-friendly business models ranging from rental and leasing to full-service contracts”. The company’s goal is to make the quality diagnosis and prognosis of the battery as an expensive wearing part easily, independently and reliably accessible to a wide range of market participants. Similar approaches are also being pursued by the companies Twice and Aviloo, among others.

“We see ourselves as risk managers for the most expensive and complex capital good that is already part of our industrial landscape – the battery,” expresses CEO Claudius Jehle. “Our customers own, are responsible for or operate assets with a balance sheet value of several billion euros – of which up to 40% are in that very complex wear part, the battery. We give these customers the opportunity to concentrate on their core business.” The total economic potential that could be achieved in the coming years through the use of automated battery diagnostics and management solutions is enormous: “Just 1% lifetime extension corresponds to a global saving of almost 200,000 tons of batteries with a value of over three billion euros per year,” volytica diagnostics visualizes.

With its solution, the company promises customers reliable risk management, transparent traceability of degradation and loss of value, and simplification of service and maintenance services. In addition, precise diagnoses and forecasts make the systems ‘bankable’ and more accessible to insurance companies, the statement continues.

Originally published in German on electrive.net, German author: Cora Werwitzke