OneD Battery Sciences Appoints GM Ventures and Volta Energy Technologies Investors to Its Board of Directors

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Follows joint R&D agreement with GM for more efficient EV batteries and closing of Series C funding round 

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- OneD Battery Sciences (OneD), a leader in electric vehicle (EV) battery technology, has appointed: Zander Arkin, Chief Investment Officer, Volta Energy Technologies (board member); James Frith, Principal, Volta Energy Technologies (board observer); and John Du, Partner, GM Ventures (board observer) to its board.

Fresh off the heels of OneD Battery Sciences' Series C funding round, which the company recently closed at $25 million, Arkin, Frith, and Du will work closely with OneD to commercialize its SINANODE technologies to help OEMs meet consumer demands for the next generation EV experience: longer range and lower cost.

With over 30 years of professional experience in investment, business development, strategy, and public policy focused on the electric power industry, Arkin has successfully served both financial and strategic corporate investors and connected innovators with key industry players. His proven success will play a key role in positioning SINANODE for rapid growth within the auto industry.

"Volta is very impressed with both the competitive performance of OneD's SINANODE material and the economics of their production process. The OneD team has executed a very thoughtful and effective development plan leading up to this point. Volta is excited to support the OneD team as they pursue the next phase of commercialization and manufacturing scale-up," said Zander Arkin, Chief Investment Officer at Volta.

Frith joins the board following a distinguished career at BloombergNEF where he led the company's coverage of storage technologies and their associated supply chains. With seven years of working on lithium batteries in the laboratory prior to BloombergNEF, Frith will use his in-depth knowledge and understanding of batteries to guide OneD on their journey of driving adoption of its SINANODE platform and embracing silicon as the future of EV batteries. 

"Volta is unique amongst VC firms, with partners having decades of experience in the development of advanced technologies including energy storage, and we are thrilled to have two of their great talents on our board," said Vincent Pluvinage, CEO of OneD Battery Sciences.

Arkin brings 30 years of energy industry finance, strategy, and public policy expertise. Frith adds a decade of energy storage knowledge, from academic research to his leading role in energy storage at BloombergNEF.

John Du was named Partner, GM Ventures, in May 2019. Prior to his role as Partner of GM Ventures, Du was Director of General Motors Research & Development organization's China Science Lab which he led from its founding in 2009. He was responsible for building a strong and innovative research team and leading the research and development of intelligent and connected vehicles, batteries, advanced materials, and electrified propulsion systems. With over ten years of automotive industry investing in frontier technologies, Du will play a key role in OneD's path toward making EVs more accessible by increasing battery performance while reducing cost.

"We are thrilled to welcome John to our board. We will no doubt benefit greatly from his guidance and experience in leading many EV sector investments," said Todd Carter, OneD's Chairman of the Board. "Working with General Motors on the development of SINANODE technologies is a critical step in the mission our team embarked on nine years ago when our investor group acquired the team led by our CTO, Yimin Zhu."

"It's an exciting time to collaborate with OneD," said John Du, Partner, GM Ventures. "I look forward to working with the board to help support the company's processes and EV battery cell research and development, which aligns with General Motors' vision of a world of zero emissions, zero crashes, and zero congestion.

Zander Arkin, James Frith, and John Du join OneD's existing board members:

• Todd Carter (Chairman)
• Vincent Pluvinage, PhD (CEO)
• Michael Wishart (CEO, efabless corporation)
• Ed Cluss (Partner, Signia Venture Partners)
• Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann (Former CEO of Opel and Continental AG)

OneD has found the solution for breaking the cost barrier and effectively adding larger amounts of silicon into EV batteries with its SINANODE platform. The company fuses silicon nanowires to EV-grade graphite to harness silicon's full capacity potential. Its business model provides scalability by utilizing the pre-existing, localized EV supply chains. To deploy SINANODE today, the company utilizes its pilot programs, which provide automakers with their own dedicated pre-production plant to qualify the SINANODE step.

OneD Battery Sciences is the creator of SINANODE, the breakthrough technology that successfully adds more energy-dense silicon into the anodes of EV batteries. The company operates a SINANODE pilot production program to support the development of advanced electrochemical cells and the production scale-up of its industrial partners. In 2013, OneD Battery Sciences acquired Nanosys' nanowire technologies (SINANODE) and its Palo Alto R&D activities. Today, the Palo Alto-based company has over 240 granted patents and applications in large-scale anode production and innovative EV battery designs.

SOURCE OneD Material, Inc.