Nanotech Energy, a U.S.-based battery energy storage company, has raised $64 million in Series D funding. Fubon Financial Holdings, a Taiwan-based financial investment holding company, led the funding round.

Nanotech Energy has raised funding of $94.9 million to date.

The company said the funding would be utilized to establish a high-volume graphene battery manufacturing facility in Reno, Nevada, and enhance its international expansion, including launching its EU headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The company plans to increase the capacity at its existing facility in California for graphene, graphene-based conductive inks, adhesives, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, and silver nanowires. The new manufacturing facility is expected to open in late 2022.

Jack Kavanaugh, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nanotech Energy, said, “We have spent more than seven years diligently creating new materials to improve battery storage capacity and safety and are now moving into a new phase of production at industry-level scale. We are pleased to have an investor like Fubon, who recognizes opportunities presented by graphene, embraces science, and shares our vision.”

Nanotech Energy said that it had removed barriers to manufacture graphene on a mass-production scale. In March 2021, the company achieved 95% monolayer graphene. Its graphene products could be used in batteries for electric vehicles and consumer electronics, printed electronics, transparent conducting electrodes, and EMI shielding.

According to Nanotech, graphene is 200 times stronger than steel, 97% transparent, extremely light in weight, flexible, and stretchable — making it the thinnest, strongest, and most flexible material. Nanotech Energy owns the world’s first graphene patent, filed in 2002 by Nanotech Energy co-founder and UCLA professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering, Dr. Richard Kaner.

Richard Tsai, Chairman of the Fubon Financial Group, said, “We believe Nanotech Energy’s proprietary, non-flammable graphene batteries have a clear path to widespread adoption and global scalability. We are excited to play a role in helping Nanotech Energy transform the future of battery technology and energy storage and look forward to our partnership with Jack Kavanaugh and his inspiring team as they work to bring their batteries to market.”

According to Mercom Research, in Q2 2020, Nanotech Energy closed its $27.5 million Series C funding.

In the first half of 2021, battery storage companies raised $9.6 billion in corporate funding from 41 deals compared to $716 million raised in 19 deals in the same period last year, according to Mercom’s 1H and Q2 2021 Funding and M&A Report for Storage, Grid & Efficiency. The report reveals that funding levels had improved every quarter since Q1 2020.