Carbice Corp, an Atlanta-based startup that developed Carbice Carbon, a thermal-management material for spacecraft and other purposes, secured US$ 15 million in a Series A funding round held in November 2020, led by Downing Ventures, with participation from Toyota AI Ventures.
With this fresh capital, Carbice intends to hire sales and marketing personnel in addition to expanding production to meet demand, according to a news release.
Along with this investment round, the company announced that Hal Laskey, a former IBM executive, would be joining the company as the chief operating officer and Bianca Cefalo, former Airbus thermal products lead, will be the company’s new International Business Development director.
Carbice Carbon is a carbon nanotube-based material devised to lower device temperatures and dissipate heat, has been integrated into geostationary communications satellites and synthetic aperture radar satellites. The company portrays Carbice Carbon as “the highest heat-conducting material in the world.”
What Carbice has to say
“Carbice Carbon eliminates the biggest headache and risk factor facing the satellite industry for the last 35 years — thermal glue,” said Baratunde Cola, co-founder, Carbice Corp, according to SpaceNews. “Thermal glue is difficult to apply, takes days to cure, and is very difficult to rework. Yet for 35-plus years the entire industry has been struggling with thermal glue for payload integration because of no viable alternative.”
“By switching from thermal glue to Carbice Carbon, prime contractors can save hundreds of dollars per square inch of the thermal interface. Geostationary satellites can have over 50,000 square inches of thermal interface and satellites destined for low Earth orbit can have 1,000s,” he also added.
What Downing Ventures has to say
According to Warren Rogers, partner at Downing Ventures said, “Carbice Carbon is nothing short of revolutionary and will completely disrupt thermal management in every industry.”
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About Carbice
Carbice was founded in 2017 by Baratunde Cola, who co-founded and co-directs the Heat Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Material Science and Engineering along with a team of leading Georgia Tech researchers in electronic device power management and product innovation. The Atlanta-based startup has received grants from the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, Georgia Research Alliance and National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research Program, to date.
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About Downing Ventures
It is a division of London-based investment management firm Downing LLP. They focus on investing in technology companies from Seed round to Series A and beyond. Their level of investment typically ranges from £500,000 to £5 million and regularly co-invests in larger syndicates.
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