Fuel cell developer CellEra Inc. has raised $2 million in its second financing round from Israel Cleantech Ventures Funds and German fund Brains to Ventures AG (B2V).
CellEra CEO Ziv Gottesfeld, CTO Shimshon Gottesfeld, and VP R&D Dario Dekel founded the Caesarea-based company in 2007. It is developing fuel cells for storage and backup of power systems, such as mobile communications systems and databases. The fuel cells are aimed at replacing batteries and diesel generators. An added value of the company's fuel cells is that they are not based on platinum and other expensive materials, which the company says cuts the fuel cells' cost by 70% compared with fuel cells now on the market.
CellEra has potential customers in the US, Europe, and Japan for its fuel cells, even though they are still only under development.
CellEra raised $2 million in its first financing round in late 2007, and, in 2009, it received a $1.5 million grant from the Office of the Chief Scientist and Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD-F) for a joint project with CommScope Inc. (NYSE: CTV).
The $5.5 million that CellEra has raised to date is probably not the end of the company's fundraising efforts; two foreign investors are interested in it, and may invest a further $1-2 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 8, 2010
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2010