Amprius, a startup working on a new type of long-lasting lithium-ion batteries for laptops and electric vehicles, has started to sell its batteries for use in portable electronics. The company recently raised $30 million in venture capital to develop its next-generation batteries, which use high-energy silicon electrodes. The company says the batteries will store about 50 percent more energy than the battery cells in today’s electric vehicles.

 

The funding is a rare piece of good news for lithium-ion battery startups (see “What Happened to A123?” “A123’s Technology Wasn’t Good Enough,” and “The Sad Story of the Battery Breakthrough That Proved Too Good to Be True”). The company, founded in 2008, has raised $61 million to date.