NiCAT Batarya Teknolojileri Kimyasallari Uretim Yapay Zeka Bilisim ArGe San. Tic. A.S.

NiCAT is a deep-tech start-up, founded in August 2020, with an initial capital from three angle investors, in Izmir, Turkey.  Relentless, focused R&D efforts delivered results, attracting new investors from the USA, Singapore and Turkey in 2022.

Today, NiCAT stands as a young technology company, with a fully functional reactor farm supported by Artificial Intelligence; and a pilot production line at operating state with a capacity of 3mt/annum. For a wider world-wide coverage, an affiliate company has been established in the USA, and, NiCAT is currently in the process of moving its headquarters there. Further opportunities are actively being explored in Canada.

Ni-CAT is a player in the area of energy storage: battery production. 

The focus is on the Cathode Active Material (CAM), which is a material of critical importance for batteries as it determines the key performance characteristics of the final product such as capacity and output. If we use electrical vehicles (EVs) as an illustrative example, it is the CAM in the battery that defines the distance the vehicle can operate before a re-charge, and the number of charge-cycles, defining its economic life. In practical terms, CAM used in EV batteries has a solid contribution to the value an EV offers to its owner – in the very same manner, CAM has a solid contribution to the value any battery-using-device offers to its users. Thus:

>> the more critical the power performance & reliability is for the area of use, the more critical the CAM choice becomes for the battery,

>> the more critical the power performance of the battery is in its area of use, the more valuable NiCAT’s contribution would be.

NiCAT’s potential customers are battery producers serving mission-critical applications such as in military, medical, space and aviation sectors. They choose to manufacture the cathode for their own batteries as they want to be in control of the technology - this is their competitive advantage in the market. 
When they apply to NiCAT, often, they would have a base cathode at hand, one that partially meets their needs. That is the starting point. The base product is analysed. Then chemical synthesis runs are performed on multiple reactors, one run after another. Each next run is modified so that, step by step, first, a cathode that matches the base product is developed, then, it is improved further to reach the targeted specs. 

Prototype Reactor Farm is an effective and efficient approach to product development. Similar set-ups are used by other companies. NiCAT’s novelty is related, to a greater extent, to its AI-based algorithm that drives the modifications to the synthesis parameters for each run. The better-informed the modification decisions are, the faster will be the move from base product to target specs.

If it is the novel AI-aided methodology that gives NiCAT the technology advantage in R&D, it is the pilot production capability that positions us as capable process partners to specialised CAM manufacturers: NiCAT can manufacture sizeable cathode samples that can be used at commercial-scale battery production lines to verify product performance, process needs and costs. 

And, building on all these, NiCAT team has been able to develop a product in line with Client requirements and sign their first Licensing contract in August 2023, for a maximum revenue potential of 26 m USD over 7 years. The client is in United States and will be building a new battery factory and the cathode production unit to serve it. Cash flows on the contract are expected to start in 2024, once the client formally kicks off the project. 

Whilst AI, as a tool in any industry, is still to reach its maturity, NiCAT is committed to putting in the relentless effort to develop and enhance the AI-based algorithm further with additional data received with every synthesis undertaken, to step-up its product development methodology, from “AI-supported” to “AI-driven”. This way, NiCAT is preparing for the future, to serve its customers with better products, developed even faster.

Cathode has been Ni-CAT’s main focus, in a sense, the “first-child”. Yet there are a vast number of other materials that can benefit from what NiCAT can offer. NiCAT is building, positioning itself for the challenge, to build “generations”.