Jinghe Energy Raises Tens of Millions in Funding, Focusing on the "Solid-Solid Interface" Challenge in Solid-State Batteries | Exclusive Report by 36Kr
36Kr learned that Jinghe Energy, an all-solid-state battery company born out of the "Starry Sky Project", recently completed an angel round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan. This round of financing was led by the Sky Workshop Venture Capital Fund.
Jinghe Energy is a provider of all-solid-state battery cells and system solutions. Its founder and CEO, Li Yantao, was once a founding key member of AVIC Lithium Battery and Geely Power Battery. Li Yantao told 36Kr that the funds obtained from this round of financing will be used for the commercialization of all-solid-state battery technology, the recruitment of core team talents, and the rapid expansion of the global commercial layout.
In the new energy vehicle field, all-solid-state batteries have long been regarded as the holy grail of the industry due to their high energy density and safety redundancy. However, limited by complex processes, high costs, and the long-term lack of breakthroughs in core technologies, all-solid-state batteries have not yet achieved large-scale mass production.
Focusing on the pain points of the all-solid-state battery industry, Jinghe Energy has proposed its own solution. The biggest obstacle to the mass production of all-solid-state batteries is the problem of solid-solid interface impedance. In response, Li Yantao said that Jinghe Energy has developed a positive and negative electrode coating technology. "When preparing the positive and negative electrode materials, a layer of sulfide coating is applied on the outside. In this way, the compactness between the same materials will be better, and its conductivity can be increased by an order of magnitude compared with the current all-solid-state batteries." Jinghe Energy plans to "increase the charge-discharge rate of all-solid-state batteries to 2C by the end of 2027."
Solid-state battery
In addition, the positive electrode of Jinghe Energy's all-solid-state battery uses lithium-rich manganese-based materials instead of high-nickel raw materials. According to Li Yantao, as a positive electrode material, lithium-rich manganese-based materials "can increase the energy density of the battery cell to 800Wh/kg."
In order to enable its products to be better applied, Jinghe Energy has also simultaneously developed an AI BMS battery management system and a PACK technology based on the CTP4.0 architecture design.
36Kr learned that the purpose of Jinghe Energy's research and development of the AI BMS battery management system is to achieve more accurate monitoring of the battery cell state and improve the ability to identify battery health. The PACK design of the CTP4.0 architecture can "improve the space utilization rate of the battery pack and thus reduce production costs."
Li Yantao explained that under the CTP4.0 design, there are no longitudinal and transverse beams in the battery pack, so more battery cells can be stacked in a battery pack of the same volume.
At the same time, Jinghe Energy has designed a keel structure. "There will also be a two-millimeter gap between each battery cell to cope with the breathing effect during charging and discharging. A material with six-in-one functions is added in the middle of the battery cells. This material can breathe and be compressed, thus ensuring the structural strength of the battery pack, playing a heat insulation role, and improving the space utilization rate inside the battery pack."
While focusing on technological breakthroughs, Jinghe Energy also emphasizes short-term commercialization. Currently, the company has reached cooperation intentions with three leading new energy commercial vehicle customers and two energy manufacturers. The first batch of engineering samples is expected to complete vehicle loading tests in the fourth quarter of 2026. The application scenarios of the products cover three major fields: intelligent vehicles, power energy storage, and eVTOL.
Founder of Jinghe Energy
According to Li Yantao's plan, Jinghe Energy aims to achieve a breakthrough in large-scale production capacity of all-solid-state batteries in 2027.
Yu Jiabin, the managing director of the industrial investor in this round, believes that "driven by the dual-carbon goal and energy transformation, the solid-state battery track is on the verge of a trillion-level market explosion. Technological barriers and commercialization capabilities are the keys to breaking through." He emphasized that the Jinghe Energy team has been deeply involved in the solid-state battery field for many years, has achieved a disruptive breakthrough in core technologies, and has clear industrialization potential. The Sky Workshop Venture Capital Fund will continue to empower it in terms of capital and industrial resources to help it grow into a global leading enterprise in all-solid-state batteries.