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Boston-Power Inc. has won a new round of venture capital worth $60 million, which will help the company to grow its operations in Massachusetts, the company announced.
Christina Lampe-Önnerud, founder and CEO of the Westborough-based lithium ion battery maker, said the funding will support the company’s next stage of worldwide growth and is “good news for Massachusetts.” The company plans to scale up its manufacturing operations in Taiwan along with its research, development and marketing operations in Massachusetts, Lampe-Önnerud said in an interview.
Of the company’s current 510 employees, 110 are based in Westborough, she said. The company expects to double its staff in the next two or three years as part of the expansion, Lampe-Önnerud said.
Boston-Power has attracted a total of $185 million in venture capital since being founded in 2005. The latest round, Series E, did not see any new investors. The round was led by Foundation Asset Management and Oak Investment Partners, and also saw participation from Venrock and Gabriel Venture Partners.
The company’s batteries are being used in some HP laptops, and earlier this month, ASUS announced it would ship a new line of business notebooks powered by Boston-Power’s Sonata battery pack.
In transportation, Boston-Power has deals to supply batteries to several electric vehicle projects, including the ZE Saab 9-3, Saab’s planned all-electric vehicle. The company has also entered the utility energy storage market and plans to announce some of its customers in that market later this year, Lampe-Önnerud said.
Overall, Boston-Power expects to increase its rate of battery production tenfold within the next three to four years, from the current rate of 10 megawatt-hours a month, she said.
“We are seeing more interest in this vision of changing the paradigm of energy storage,” Lampe-Önnerud said. “The challenge is that the market is growing, but you can only grow so fast.”
Along with the new funding, Boston-Power announced that Allan C.Y. Kwan, a former vice president of Yahoo! International, has joined its board.
Kwan, a venture partner with Oak Investment Partners, lives in Beijing and was also formerly the chairman and CEO of Asia.com. “I think by adding him and having a person stationed in the heartland of China is going to be very valuable for us,” Lampe-Önnerud said.
The company currently employs 50 people in China and 350 at the Taiwan manufacturing facility, she said.
Meanwhile, Boston-Power’s previous plan to open a manufacturing facility in Auburn remains on hold and is not a part of the current expansion plan, Lampe-Önnerud said. The proposed facility is dependent on government grant funding, she said, which was denied for the project last August.
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