India’s Offgrid raises $15M to make lithium optional for battery storage | TechCrunch

Lithium has become the default choice for battery power systems, but its limitations, from volatile supply chains to short lifespans, are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Offgrid Energy Labsis a deep technology startup based in India that hopes to make lithium lowering centers, especially in battery storage.

The seven-year-old startup, incubated at IIT Kanpur, has developed a proprietary zinc bromine-based battery system to replace lithium-ion technology. The startup says it is called Zincgel, which provides 80-90% energy efficiency of traditional lithium batteries, but has lowered levels of storage costs.

As global electricity demand grows, countries are intensifying efforts to expand renewable energy storage. In this regard, India aims to increase its non-fossil energy capacity tenfold – from 50 GW to 500 GW – By 2030. So is New Delhi Target 236 GWh In June, battery storage capacity is 2031-32 and Rs 54 billion (approximately US$612 million) of funds were announced to develop the country’s 30 GW battery storage system. But, like many global markets, India faces a key challenge: China’s dominance over the lithium supply chain.

Offgrid Energy Labs bets that its Zincgel battery technology can alleviate supply constraints by using widely available materials and providing more cost-effective alternatives to lithium-based systems.

Now, the startup has raised $15 million in Series A funds to expand its operations. It plans to establish a 10 MW demonstration facility in the UK, which is expected to be ready in the first quarter of 2026, and start commercializing Zincgel in subsequent regions, with plans to be in Gigafactory in India as the next phase.

“We should not only address the market gap from an application perspective, but we should also make it financially viable because there were technology and batteries globally in the past that had solutions, but they were so expensive that they were not widely adopted.”

Kusurkar, who has a PhD from IIT Kanpur, co-founded Offgrid Energy Labs in 2018 at the Institute’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, as well as Brindan Tulachan (also a PhD from IIT Kanpur), Rishi Srivastava and Ankur Agarwal. The team observed that while lithium batteries are well suited for mobility, the fixed storage market is underserved – requiring safer, more resilient and built on the supply chain, easy to access, Kusurkar told TechCrunch.

The startup spent its first six years developing battery technology and has so far acquired over 25 IP families and over 50 IP assets in various markets including the United States, the United Kingdom, India, China, Australia and Japan. The battery is based on a zinc-bromide chemical reaction with a proprietary water-based electrolyte, resulting in a low fire risk.

Zincgel is also able to handle longer emissions multiple times over the entire life cycle (6-12 hours) and can last twice as long as it lasts a typical lithium-ion battery, Kusurkar said. In addition, the battery utilizes a carbon-based cathode for fast charging and emissions.

Zinc in batteries is not a new concept, and some companies have already offered zinc-zinc bromide-based batteries, including those listed on Nasdaq EOS Energy Enterprises. However, Kusurkar noted that Offgrid Energy Labs uses its patented assets to reduce costs. Zincgel batteries can also reduce the need to use graphite, which helps reduce their production costs.

“Ultimately, customers care about the same performance, better price or better performance,” Srivastava told TechCrunch.

Offgrid Energy Labs’ technology is also designed to adjust or super optimize the battery according to the application. Srivastava said this means that these zinc batteries can operate independently of ambient conditions and provide energy storage even at temperatures as low as minus 10 degrees Celsius.

The startup is targeting an industry with a net-zero goal, and they hope to maximize renewable energy utilization by integrating battery storage. Its batteries are also being used in applications such as peak transfer and dispersion, off-grid energy solutions. Shell – invested in Offgrid in its corporate venture capital, while Tata Power was an early tester. Qidian also talks with players around the world, including the European ENEL Group, to develop batteries for their specific use cases.

So far, Offgrid Energy Labs has manually built battery technology in a patch lab in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. However, the startup plans to use its factory in the UK to showcase its technology to early customers next year.

Srivastava said the carbon footprint of UK plants will be 50% lower than the typical lithium battery locally.

Srivastava said that when asked why the UK, not India, was for its first facility, Europe provided a strong ecosystem and was already a hub for battery manufacturing. The startup already has co-founders Kusurkar and Tulachan in the UK to help with local operations. Still, once the battery is ready to be commercialized in 2026, the startup sees India as one of its main markets.

The Series A round is led by Archnai Chemicals (Archean Chemicals), a Chennai-based specialty chemical manufacturer that now owns a 21% stake in the startup and participates in Ankur Capital.

Srivastava told TechCrunch that Archean’s involvement is a strategic consistency because publicly listed companies have extensive expertise in bromine manufacturing and supply chain management.

The startup is worth about $58 million.