StoreDot CEO and founder Dr. Doron Myersdorf is convinced that he is going start a revolution in energy availability, first through the ultra-fast charging of mobile phones, and later through the groundbreaking field of electric cars.
“In the last twenty years, battery developments have not impacted the user experience,” Myersdorf said, in an exclusive interview with “Globes - G Magazine.” "Energy concentration in batteries is improving at a rate of 7% each year, but the problem is that this improvement is used for innovations, like increasing smartphone screen size, and navigation apps that use a lot of power. Technology companies invest billions to arrive at the same, fixed improvement each year, but the end user doesn’t notice it, because, in the end, his battery runs out in the middle of the day."
“Our innovation at StoreDot is that we came and said: Okay, we don’t know how to improve energy density, but we know how to do it faster. The battery might run out more quickly, but I will make it possible to charge it quickly, anywhere, like at McDonalds or Starbucks while you’re paying.”
Myersdorf’s goal is to transform smartphone battery charging into something that takes between 30 and 90 seconds, depending on the battery size. “When we first demonstrated our product, we could charge 800 milliamps (mA) in 30 seconds. Now, capacity has increased, and the charging device has gotten smaller, so we offer a product that replaces a smartphone battery. Because we’re talking about a battery with an 800 milliamp capacity, which is half an iPhone’s capacity, it means that a user will need to charge his phone three times a day. The goal is to have batteries with larger capacities in the future that will solve this problem.
“We burn at least one smartphone a day - our lab’s objective is to burn phones,” he smiles. “When we founded the company, we burned mostly third generation iPhones - then we also bought every used smartphone we found on eBay. Today, we need to buy the more advanced smartphones, which cost $500, compared with the $100 devices that we had experience with at the beginning.”
StoreDot has 30 employees, and you operate in fields with Apple, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, Google, and all the rest of the tech giants, with resource-rich R&D centers. What do you know that they don’t?
“The reason that we succeed where others have not succeeded for decades is that we are looking at the matter from a different perspective. The core of what we are doing is inventing new materials for our products, and not basing ourselves on existing materials and attempts to improve them, as the rest of the world is doing. We decided that we wanted to develop a molecule that knows how to transport ions more quickly. This is a methodology that no one else in our field is employing. The only place where people work like this is in biotech, and it’s done for drug development. We’re breaking the rules, and the excitement around the world about our technology is crazy.”
“Like who?”
“Every big company in the world that you can think of has been in our offices in Ramat Gan, even more than once. We presented our solution at a Microsoft conference in Israel a year ago, and since then, they haven’t stopped coming to us. The video in which we presented our technology on YouTube had 3 million views within 24 hours.”
A “Globes - G Magazine” interview with one of your enthusiastic investors, Jack Lahav, said that you have business ties with Samsung, and that Samsung will receive priority.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that the company is Samsung. I can say that we are currently in a relationship with one of the Korean companies, but also that we are not committed to it, despite its investment in our company. Our goal, currently, is to close a deal with one of the leading companies, and two companies that we are currently in talks with want exclusivity for a period of one or two years. And not just for the smartphone batteries, but also for their other mobile devices, since this is technology that can be suitable for tablets, laptops, and anything having to do with wearable computing - from smart watches and bracelets to Google Glass.”
Roman Abramovich came to us
Myersdorf’s StoreDot wants to enter the groundbreaking field of electric vehicles. Myersdorf is convinced that “We can change the auto-industry like the smartphone industry. We will do this by making it possible to charge an electric vehicle in just five minutes. Today, Tesla’s fastest car charger takes half an hour, and the charge lasts for 100 miles (160 km). We will do the same thing, but in just a few minutes, and we’ll make it possible to travel 200 miles (320 km).
“This is because we can do it with the same technology from the smartphone. The one that’s in Tesla’s electric cars uses 7,000 regular Panasonic batteries, exactly like the ones you put in a flashlight. They just take thousands of lithium-ion batteries, connect them, and manage them.”
Are you already in prototype stages for car batteries?
“We don’t yet have a prototype for electric cars, but we already have a number of investors who want to develop a project that will deal only with this. I won’t bring it into the company, because it could harm my smartphone activity. For this reason, the investors said they will save $20 million that will be earmarked for electric cars only. This thing will change the world, and I think that we don’t yet understand how much it will change the world.”
Other than Jack Lahav, StoreDot investors include Stef Wertheimer, Moshe Hogeg’s Singulariteam fund, and, most impressively, aluminum, energy and soccer billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has invested $10 million in the company. “It’s true that in the beginning it was very difficult for us to raise money for our product, but now the problem is entirely different,” says Myersdorf. “We recently raised $42 million, but I could have raised $100 million, or even $200 million. Investors were lined up, and I just stopped.”
How did you reach Abramovich?
Abramovich came to us himself. He sent one of his people. He said that without understanding technology, he thinks that our product has incredible potential. When I asked him why he’s investing in us, he said that he’s looking for products that have the potential to change the world. In an interview he gave, which I recently saw in the Russian ‘Forbes,’ he said that StoreDot is his most promising investment.”
“They thought we were crazy”
StoreDot, which recently presented its technology at the highly regarded CES electronics convention in Las Vegas, was founded in 2012 by Myersdorf with Prof. Simon Litsyn and Prof. Gil Rosenman. At the start, the company’s R&D was focused on an entirely different field. Myersdorf previous served as senior director for the SSD business unit at Sandisk. SSD technology is used for data storage on mobile devices such as laptops, and Myserdorf initially intended for StoreDot to focus on flash memory, “and one of the products we developed had to with color technology for smartphone screens.”
How did you get from smartphone screens to rechargeable batteries?
“We have dozens of PhDs sitting around the table and inventing new molecules to answer to the product I need. If, for example, when I worked at Sandisk in the past, I wanted to use a new molecule, it would have been a 2 year work process. Here, at StoreDot, every two hours I invent a new molecule, test it, and know whether or not it’s worth something. If it’s no good, I just dump it down the drain. At Sandisk, such a product would cost $50 million - it costs me $50.”
Okay, but you still haven’t explained the connection between flash technology, developing screen colors, and rechargeable batteries.”
“Using a similar methodology of developing new molecules, we are inventing a molecule that transports ions more quickly. We look at its structure, at its characteristics, and basically create a version that didn’t previously exist. If, for example, I create a polymer that knows to be charged quickly, I synthesize it with a material called metal oxide, so it will have characteristics on the one hand of a cable that knows how to be charged quickly, and on the other of lithium batteries that know how to break down slowly. The combination of the two is a new material. When we started working on this technology, people thought we were crazy.”
StoreDot is not the only crazy one. Dozens of research groups in Israel and around the world are working around the clock to advance the much anticipated breakthrough in battery technology. Technion Department of Materials Science and Engineering electrochemistry expert Prof. Yair Ein-Eli says that the two technologies that are today at the center of the research are lithium-air and lithium-sulfur, where in both the anode is made of lithium metal. “If one of these technologies makes it past the obstacles facing it, which currently seem insurmountable - but for which we have research and technology - it is reasonable to assume that we will be able to create a rechargeable battery that weighs between 250 and 400 kilograms and will last for 700 kilometers of driving between charges. The goal is to also reach fast-charging times between few minutes and a few dozen minutes.”
Though Prof. Ein-Eli is very optimistic regarding the odds of developing such batteries in the not-too-distant future, he explains that this is no trivial task: “The moment you reach systems with energy densities that provide 700 kilometers of travel, we are talking about 70-100 kilowatt per hour systems. This means that it is basically a miniature power station, and it means that the risk of a malfunction that could lead to disaster as a result of a great deal of energy being present in a relatively small space is high. We must be certain that disasters don’t occur, and we have a way to go before we get there.”
“We want a partial exit”
StoreDot is working on fast-charging technology, but one that requires a corded connection. Another Israeli company, Powermat, offers free wireless charging in Starbucks coffee shops in San Francisco. “With Powermat’s solution,” says Myersdor, “the user needs to drink his whole cup of coffee in order to charge part of the battery. With our product, the user receives his or her charge, possibly even for free, while standing at the register. I could offer a wireless charging solution, but it wouldn’t be fast. I think that the market will ultimately adopt a corded, fast-charging solution, because it is a winning product.”
When will we see the first smartphones using your technology in the stores?
“I think that smartphones with batteries that we developed will be available in stores in later 2016. The reason that we need another two years is that many tests and certifications must be done. We are preparing for pilot for our battery among all the company’s employees on the Samsung Galaxy SS.”
You’ve registered four patents in the field, but still - how you defend yourselves against copycats?
“It’s a double-edged sword. The day we demonstrated our technology, I know for certain that Apple, Samsung, and Google opened departments to develop the product. I have met their people, who have dozens of people trying to copy us. One of the reasons I don’t send them our product is so that they won’t be able to copy it. Anyone who wants to see our product work needs to come to my office, so they won’t be able to copy it.”
At some point, the product will be released.
“Of course we won’t be the only ones in the field, and all the companies are working on this. It’s also clear to us that the moment the battery and charger reach a Chinese company, they will take them apart and find a way to do something similar. It’s true that I have the advantage of time and knowledge, but they copy fast. And, yes, with all the patent protection, my fear is that we will lose the competitive edge. That’s why we must always invest in R&D. This is a company that is based on technology, not product. I must continue staying ahead of the market, all the time. Today, I have this advantage. I need to maintain it in the next generation as well.”
Do you see an exit in the near future?
“We want a partial exit for the charging technology, and to continue working on other products, like the screens. The technologies that we are working on are relevant also for the medical world, because this is organic technology. I can, for example, attach it to a drug molecule, and use it as a mechanism by which to deliver a drug to a specific part of the body. The world of medicine is desperate for nanotechnology that’s organic, and I can replace the gold nanoparticles in nanotechnology, 90% of which are based on metals. Our materials are natural, and you can drink them.” But that’s already another revolution.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 22, 2015
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