The sum raised across 64 corporate funding deals in total represented a 117% increase from the equivalent period of 2023 when US$7.1 billion was recorded from 59 deals.
It is short of the US$15.8 billion raised in H1 2022, although at the time it was noted by Mercom that the US$10.7 billion IPO by LG Energy Solution ‘distorted’ year-on-year comparisons.
It will be interesting to see how the rest of 2024 stacks up. 2022 went on to be an all-time high year with US$26 billion raised, up from US$17 billion in 2021. Although last year finished with a stronger second-half performance after a quiet start, the final total stood at US$19 billion in corporate funding for energy storage sector companies.
VC funding top five
Meanwhile, VC funding activity was dominated in dollar terms by money raised by lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery and energy storage companies.
Mercom’s top five VC deals for H1 2024 did, however, include three companies focused on non-lithium technologies: metal-hydrogen battery startup Enervenue, sodium-ion (Na-ion) company Natron Energy, and thermal heat and power storage company Antora Energy.
| Company name | Technology | VC deal amount (US$) |
| Sila Technologies | Silicon anodes for Li-ion batteries | 375 million |
| EnerVenue | Nickel-hydrogen batteries and storage systems | 308 million |
| Natron Energy | Sodium-ion batteries | 189 million |
| Ascend Elements | Lithium battery recycler | 162 million |
| Antora Energy | Thermal heat and power storage | 150 million |
The top five represented a significant portion of the US$2.4 billion in VC funding raised from 28 deals during the period. This total was a 37% drop from H1 2023 when storage companies got US$3.8 billion from 43 deals.
In H1 2024, there were 16 debt and public market financing deals totalling US$13 billion, which was a massive 294% increase from US$3.3 billion from 16 deals during the same period of last year.
M&A activity into energy storage companies was up year-on-year, but there were fewer project-related M&A deals: there were 14 M&A transactions for companies in H1 2024 versus just eight in H1 2023, while there were 13 project M&A deals in the first six months of this year compared to 19 in H1 2023.