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Bill Gates's favored battery company went bankrupt.
Ambri, a liquid metal battery manufacturing company, had high hopes for:
Realize the replacement of lithium batteries.
This attracted investors, including Bill Gates, to bet on their investments.
However, after burning up 1 billion, Ambri has never been able to mass produce it on a large scale.
Finally, 14 years after its establishment, this battery company fell at the climax of new energy.
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Recently, Ambri, known as the "originator of liquid metal batteries", announced that it had filed for bankruptcy.
Chief Commercial Officer Adam Briggs said the company had tried a lot, but in the end it felt like the only way to go was to file for bankruptcy.
The company can't continue to operate.
Although Ambri's idea is very novel, the vision of replacing lithium batteries is ambitious, attracting more than 1 billion yuan in financing, of which Bill Gates has invested in three rounds.
However, in the 14 years since its establishment, Ambri has been burning money, has not achieved self-hematopoiesis, the technology has not been implemented, and the products have not been mass-produced.
Investors lost patience, Ambri couldn't get new financing, the company went into crisis, and eventually went bankrupt and will be auctioned off for $38 million.
Founded by a well-known battery expert and favored by Bill Gates, how did Ambri fall?
Ambri from inception to bankruptcy
Amrbi was founded in 2010 by Donald Sadoway, an expert in electrochemistry and an honorary professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In the early years, he developed new materials to improve the energy density of lithium ions.
△唐纳德·萨杜威（左）与其所带博士生David Bradwell（右）
Later, he focused his research on grid-scale energy storage batteries, arguing that energy storage technology must be used if humanity wants to wean itself off fossil fuels.
But he judged that lithium-ion could not be an option for grid-scale energy storage due to cost and energy density, so he invented an entirely new battery in 2009:
Liquid metal batteries.
Unlike conventional batteries, this type of battery consists of three separate liquids:
Magnesium is used for the anode (later converted to calcium), molten antimony is used for the cathode, and molten salt electrolyte is used for the electrolyte.
Due to the difference in density, the three are stacked and layered.
When discharged, magnesium ions sink and form an alloy with antimony. During the whole discharge process, the electrode material is fully utilized.
This solves the dendrite problem, has a longer battery life, and says Saduwe and his team can run for 20 years without degrading. The manufacturing cost is also lower than that of lithium batteries.
Based on this technology, Saduwe and student David Bradwell co-founded Ambri. Millions of dollars in funding were quickly secured, with investors including the US oil giant Total, the US Department of Energy, and Bill Gates.
Bill Gates met Sadwe through "online classes".
One of Saduwey's online courses has exploded on social platforms and attracted Bill Gates.
He admired the professor as "the best chemist in the world" and visited Saduwe at MIT.
During the visit, Bill Gates said that if there is a liquid metal battery startup, he is willing to invest.
In addition to the initial stage of its establishment, in 2014 and 2021, Ambri completed financing of US$35 million (equivalent to about RMB 213 million at the time) and US$144 million (equivalent to about RMB 930 million at that time)
Bill Gates is all involved.
In 2023, Ambri launched a Series F financing with a plan to raise $300 million, but the main investors finally chose to withdraw, Ambri's financing failed, and the capital chain was broken.
Ambri tried to save the company and made a last-ditch struggle:
In November last year, it cut two-thirds of its workforce by cutting its workforce and reducing costs.
But in the end, he did not escape the fate of bankruptcy.
Its chief commercial officer, Briggs, explained the company's cash burn after the bankruptcy, saying that although the cost of battery products itself is lower than that of lithium batteries, the cost of building factories is high.
He also said that the product is close to commercialization, because the company retains the core team and is still developing the product at the expected pace. While the external market is still vast, there is a huge opportunity for non-lithium-ion batteries.
Summing up Ambri's journey, he came up with a technical route that claimed to be better, but it took 14 years and it never got through, and the product did not land and was not commercialized.
In the end, the capital chain was broken, and it went bankrupt and was auctioned.
If there is no buyer with a higher bid, Ambri will be acquired by a consortium of creditors.
The consortium of creditors promised that if it took over, it would continue to raise funds to support the company's development.
However, on the one hand, the cost of lithium batteries is declining year by year, and on the other hand, the industry is aware of the life problem of lithium batteries, trying to extend their life and establishing a recycling gradient mechanism.
It is more difficult to establish an advantage over lithium batteries in terms of cost and life.
Reference Links:
https://www.36kr.com/p/2781289461367688