Solid Power

Solid Power is a Colorado battery technology company that develops sulfide-based solid electrolyte and solid-state cell designs for electric vehicles. Its filings date its inception to 2012, and its patent portfolio includes exclusive licenses from the University of Colorado Boulder and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Co-founder Douglas Campbell has served on the board since March 2014, when the business converted to a corporation. The company is based in Louisville, Colorado, runs an electrolyte pilot plant in Thornton, and does not plan to become a commercial cell manufacturer; it aims to sell electrolyte and license cell technology to automakers and battery makers.

Its strategic investors have also been its industrial partners. BMW began working with Solid Power in 2016. In 2018 the company closed a $25.4 million Series A-1 preferred round, in which Ford Motor Company invested $3.0 million and Volta SPV SPW, an affiliate of Volta Energy Technologies, invested $5.0 million and took a board seat. Between 2020 and 2021 it issued about $7.4 million of convertible notes, largely to Volta entities, which converted into Series B preferred. The Series B, which closed in May 2021 and which the company's 10-K describes as a $135.6 million round, included $49.6 million from BMW Holding B.V., $30.0 million from Ford and $43.0 million from Volta funds, with BMW and Ford each appointing a director. Both automakers signed joint development agreements for EV cells.

On June 15, 2021, Solid Power agreed to merge with Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation III, a SPAC sponsored by Riverstone Holdings, at an implied pre-money enterprise value of about $1.2 billion. The deal closed on December 8, 2021, alongside a $195 million PIPE at $10.00 per share, and the shares began trading on Nasdaq as SLDP. At closing, Volta entities held 10.7 percent, Ford 6.9 percent and BMW Holding 6.3 percent. Since then the company has licensed cell line know-how to BMW, signed agreements with SK On covering a pilot line and electrolyte supply, and in October 2025 entered a joint evaluation agreement with Samsung SDI and BMW. For 2025 it reported $21.7 million of revenue and grant income, about $336.5 million of total liquidity at year end and roughly 230 employees, and in January 2026 it raised $122.2 million in net proceeds through a registered direct offering.

Solid Power illustrates a deep-technology path in which corporate investors carried most of the private risk. The specialist energy-storage fund Volta and the automakers Ford and BMW entered at the Series A-1 and Series B stages, and the company reached a public listing about nine years after inception, without generating meaningful commercial revenue, through a SPAC structure that was common for battery and EV companies in 2021.