AquaLith Joins Mtech Ventures

AquaLith Inc., a company that has exclusively licensed a portfolio of lithium-ion battery-related patents from the University of Maryland, is the latest to join the Mtech Ventures incubator.

AquaLith is commercializing next-generation battery materials that enable consumer electronics to charge faster and less frequently. The new technologies are safer, have a higher energy density, are less expensive, contain no nickel or cobalt, and operate efficiently down to very low temperatures, according to the company. 

Led by serial entrepreneur and CEO Ted Olsen, founder and former CEO of PathSensors, Inc. (acquired by Smiths Detection) and an early-stage investor and former chief operating officer of Innovative Biosensors, AquaLith is also joined by Gregory Cooper, founder and former CTO of Mtech Ventures graduate company Pixelligent Technologies, LLC. Cooper earned his Ph.D. in Physics from UMD.

AquaLith’s licensed technology was recognized as UMD’s Overall and Physical Science Invention of the Year in 2020, and is based upon the work of Chunsheng Wang, Professor and Robert Franklin and Frances Riggs Wright Distinguished Chair, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, in collaboration with Kang Xu, ECS Fellow, ARL Fellow, Team Leader, and Senior Chemist at U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

The company recently raised $750,000 from the Maryland Momentum Fund (MMF) and a consortium of private investors.

September 21, 2021