This startup is really small, it only has 7 employees, it doesn't even have income and there are no customers. However, recently, they received substantial funding from Bill Gates.
The name of the startup is Mangrove Lithium. Bill Gates' investment agency, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, splashed them with $10 million in capital. What did this startup do to make it look promising?
As quoted by us from Entrepreneur, Tuesday (12/21/2021) Mangrove Lithium focuses on developing technology to convert raw lithium material into battery material which is seen as having the potential to revolutionize the market in the future.
Lithium, among others, is used in batteries for electric vehicles. In recent years, as it is known, the number of electric cars has increased rapidly as people's interest in switching from conventional vehicles has increased, so that the number has exceeded 10 million units globally. So the demand for lithium soared.
Demand is expected to grow from around 354,000 metric tons of lithium to 2.57 million metric tons by 2030. This demand can be difficult to meet because there are limitations to converting lithium into a form that can be used by the battery industry.
Well, this startup wants to be a solution to this problem. This is what might make Bill Gates not hesitate to support their work even though at this time it can be said that it is still a startup that is not widely known.
"The competitive technology for producing lithium materials for batteries is currently in great demand. New production capacity is needed in order to meet the tremendous demand for batteries for vehicles," said Celine Buchel of research bureau IHS Markit.