[A Success Odyssey from a Startup Mentor].
■Kim Joo-Seong, CEO of LiBEST
Spin-off from KAIST…Two CES Innovation Awards
Flexible products that do not burn easily
Expecting various demands such as ESS, drones, and robots
LiBEST CEO Kim Joo-Seong poses for a photo during a business trip to Sweden in the middle of this month.
[Photo courtesy of LiBEST]
“The transition to future mobility has reached an inflection point as major overseas countries such as Europe show a strong commitment to carbon neutrality. We will enter various markets including electric vehicles with battery technology that does not freeze or burn.”
Kim Joo-Seong (pictured), CEO of LiBEST, told the Seoul Economic Daily on the 19th, “We are accelerating our overseas expansion in earnest.”
LiBEST is a secondary battery startup founded in 2016 as a spin-off from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Its main products are Flame-Retardant & Anti-freeze Battery and bendable flexible batteries. Anti-freeze Battery can withstand temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius and does not burn easily. LiBEST has won two innovation awards at CES, the world’s largest information technology (IT) consumer electronics show, in 2020 for its flexible battery and this year for its Flame-Retardant & Anti-freeze Battery.
LiBEST’s batteries are characterized by their ability to work in extreme environments. Kim recently traveled to Sweden as part of the Korea-Sweden Economic Cooperation Mission to showcase the company’s battery technology. “As a country located on the Scandinavian peninsula near the North Pole, Sweden has a high demand for electric vehicles that can maintain battery performance even in extremely cold climates,” Kim said. “In addition to electric vehicles, we also discussed cooperation in the two-wheeled electric vehicle and electric ship markets.”
In addition to electric mobility, Flame-Retardant & Anti-freeze Battery is expected to be in demand in various industries, including energy storage systems (ESS), drones, and logistics robots, Kim said. “ESS with flame-retardant batteries can be safely installed in the basements of old buildings, where electric vehicle charging infrastructure is difficult to access, by utilizing the strength of not catching fire easily,” he said. “Flexible batteries can also be applied to healthcare devices such as metaverse devices related to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), and smartwatches and smartrings.”
In April of this year, LiBEST opened a fully automated factory in Daejeon to produce secondary batteries. The company currently employs 70 people and has attracted KRW 21.8 billion in cumulative investment. With the help of the Korea Startup Promotion Agency, the company was able to move into an office in the early stages.
“I was deeply impressed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and decided to start my own business,” said Kim. “I want to become an entrepreneur who creates technological value and opens up new markets beyond simply sharing the battery market pie.”
[Source: https://m.sedaily.com/NewsView/29W0RAAQYB#cb]
