(Yicai) Aug. 6 -- Jnion Energy, a Chinese sodium-ion battery materials startup backed by Lightspeed China Partners, has become one of the leading players in China's sodium-ion battery materials industry in only two years.

Founded in April 2022, Jnion Energy is the only company in the Chinese sodium-ion battery material industry to have shipped 100 tons of products and received orders from top customers.

The global sodium-ion battery market is expected to reach an annual market value of USD14.2 billion by 2035, according to a report by South Korean research firm SNE Research.

Jnion Energy received about USD10 million from Lightspeed China in its Pre-A round financing round early last year, as well as other investments from the venture capital firm during its Pre-A+ round later on.

"Lightspeed China's investment was crucial for our exponential expansion from one to 10," said Cao Yuliang, chairman and chief scientist of Jnion Energy. "Without it, we would still be struggling with small batch production."

Aug. 22, 2023, is one of Jnion Energy's most pivotal days because its 1,000-ton production line for sodium-ion battery materials came on stream, General Manager Fan Haiman believes.

On that day, Jnion Energy successfully demonstrated its scalability of sodium iron phosphate-based polyanion compounds, marking the commercialization of polyanion materials in China.

The first batch of the product immediately passed the critical capacity performance test. "We originally estimated that the product would achieve about 90 percent of the test product's performance, so everyone was thrilled with the results," said Fan. Given the success, Jnion Energy immediately decided to bring the pilot line to full production.

Cao believes that successfully running the 1,000-ton production line is a milestone for the company. "Only at a scale of thousands of tons will downstream customers dare to purchase and use the product," he explained.

As a core provider of key battery materials, Jnion Energy has essentially achieved full coverage of leading power battery and energy storage battery companies in China. In addition to energy storage, Jnion Energy has also achieved ton-scale delivery to leading two-wheeled vehicle battery makers.

"From small to large batteries, from battery cells to systems, leading battery companies have done a lot of development work with us," Fan pointed out. "We communicate regarding large-scale technologies on a weekly to biweekly basis, including early testing, downstream product applications, and progress on the 10,000-ton production line."

According to Fan, Jnion Energy has cut costs and ensured reliable performance for its clients, as well as established itself in the upstream and downstream reaches of the supply chain.

"In the long run, sodium-ion batteries have an absolute advantage in cost and applications in energy storage systems and in certain transportation fields that are not as sensitive to energy density," said Gavin Zhu, a partner at Lightspeed China.

Jnion Energy will begin the commercialization of cathode material products this year.

Editor: Futura Costaglione