James Larsen on zinc-air, the 10-to-100-hour storage gap lithium can’t fill economically, and why the next round is execution capital.

e-Zinc is setting out to raise early growth capital next year, in the range of $50 to $100 million. The use of proceeds: establishing manufacturing to deliver against a commercial pipeline Larsen described as already stacked.

The company's first is a system going to the California Energy Commission (CEC), which Larsen said will be the world’s first demonstration of a 24-hour duration battery system. Behind the meter, replacing fossil fuels as backup power. He called it low-hanging fruit because e-Zinc isn’t competing with other batteries there.

Right behind it is a project with Toyota Tsusho, also behind the meter, structured as a microgrid combining their solar with e-Zinc’s battery to supply the facility. Larsen framed that as the template for off-grid, where the technology paired with renewables displaces fossil fuel as primary power. The applications he listed: off-grid mining, defence, telecommunications, islands and remote communities.

His framing of the raise: “We will have validated the solution already with the CEC and Toyota. Our next raise will be all about execution capital and the final de-risking of the solution at the major project level ahead of being fully commercial.”

Lithium is excellent at high-power, short-duration work, Larsen said, typically sized at two to four hours and starting to bid into eight. The techno-economics start falling down around 10 hours. Below 10 is lithium. At 10 and above is e-Zinc.

The reason is structural. In lithium-ion, the power-to-energy ratio is fixed, so stacking enough two- or four-hour batteries to reach 24 or 48 hours buys you multiples of power you’ll never use.

His household math: the average North American home uses roughly 40 kWh a day at three to five kilowatts. A Tesla Powerwall is rated 5 kW and 13 kWh, so two days takes six of them, handing you 30 kW against a three-to-five kilowatt need. e-Zinc decouples the two, so a system can run three to five kilowatts with 40 kWh for a day or 80 kWh for two. His analogy was pumped hydro: the turbine sets power, the reservoir sets energy, and you can resize the reservoir without touching the turbine.

The duration requirements he cited: more than 90% of California’s public safety power shutoff events over the last five years have run a day or longer; data centre operators are working to internal backup protocols in the range of 48 hours.

At pilot scale, e-Zinc is currently more expensive. The company works with customers with higher willingness to adopt, on applications where the comparison is expensive fossil fuel rather than batteries.

At scale, Larsen expects to land markedly below lithium-ion, with the caveat that it depends on duration. Longer duration drives dollars per kilowatt-hour down, because you’re scaling a low-cost electrolyte rather than the whole system.

The cost structure traces to a first-principles decision to design around commodity materials and everyday manufacturing. Plastic, commodity metals, non-FEOC materials, with processes closest to automotive: sheet metal stamping, injection-moulded plastic.

Scale-up runs through contract manufacturing. Final cell assembly and system integration currently happen in Mississauga, Ontario, but the intent is Tier 1 CMs, since the IP sits in the process and specific components. The argument: global footprints, economies of scale sooner, and no need to buy land, build facilities or hire at volume.

At end of life, the electrode assemblies use copper, zinc, iron and nickel, all fully reclaimable. Housings don’t degrade and can be reused, and the electrolyte can be reprocessed.

Two tracks. OEM sales to system integrators and project developers will always be part of it. But the company also wants into ownership: resilience as a service for behind-the-meter backup, energy as a service for off-grid primary power. Recurring revenue over longer terms, and a lower adoption barrier because e-Zinc carries the risk.

Larsen was measured on timing. A younger company doesn’t open with Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). Direct sales come first, to validate the solution.

On sizing, cells stack into enclosed packs, and packs go into containers. A 20-foot container could serve multiple houses or a small community; multiple containers scale to a data center, and a few packs in a small tower cover a residence, cottage or telecom tower. This means the batteries can be scaled to fit the majority of systems.

Larsen named Evok Innovations, Toyota Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, BDC, EDC, Anzu Partners, Earth Foundry and Eni Next, a mix of financial and strategic VCs who have supported multiple rounds. Chris Hadfield is also an investor.

He credited non-dilutive funding as well, calling the Canadian government outstanding and listing several federal and provincial grant bodies the company has received funding from. His point for investors: grant awards function as signals that financial investors read when deciding where to place bets.

On process, his advice was unglamorous. It’s a numbers game. Screen by thesis, vertical and whether they’ve invested in storage before, and recognize that the right investor changes at every stage.

Our last guest asked what industry excites him most. Larsen picked energy: after a century of centralized generation running largely on coal and gas, the system is shifting to diverse renewable generation; storage, he called it a Swiss Army knife for the grid, and distributed generation at homes and businesses. His read on where we are: the bottom of the second inning.

His question for the next guest: how was your leadership tested the most in your career, and what’s the story behind that?

Asked for his best leadership advice, he landed on tenacity and resilience. As CEO, he said the only problems that reach you are the ones nobody beneath you could or would decide.

Listen to the full podcast episode here