Why we invested in e-TRNL Energy
- Sunil Cavale
- 13 minutes ago
- 3 min read
We’re thrilled to share that we are participating in the INR 27.4Cr Seed Round of e-TRNL Energy, a company rethinking cell architecture with a manufacturing-first mindset.
When we first invested in the company in late 2022, our conviction was rooted in one belief: The future of batteries will not just be determined by chemistry breakthroughs — it will be shaped by manufacturing breakthroughs. That conviction has only strengthened.
The global battery conversation is dominated by chemistry, energy density, fast charging, and the promise of solid-state batteries.
But beneath all of that lies a more practical constraint: Battery cell manufacturing is complex, capital-intensive, and yield-sensitive.
Traditional cell manufacturing requires:
Multiple precise coating steps
Tight process tolerances
Significant material handling
Complex assembly flows
Small inefficiencies compound at scale. Yield losses destroy margins. Capex intensity limits who can compete.
The companies that simplify manufacturing win.
A Different Starting Point
What drew us to e-TRNL Energy early on was their willingness to rethink cell architecture from a manufacturing-first lens.
Instead of accepting traditional design constraints, the team asked:
Can cell architecture reduce processing steps?
Can internal structure improve material utilization?
Can manufacturing become more forgiving without sacrificing performance?
This is a fundamentally different starting point.
Rather than chasing incremental chemistry gains, e-TRNL Energy focused on structural and process innovation that could make cells:
Simpler to assemble
More efficient in material use
Lower in production cost
Easier to scale across formats
Why We Reinvested
Follow-on investments are never automatic for us. They represent conviction strengthening, not just capital deployment.
Over the years, e-TRNL Energy has consistently worked towards simplifying the cell with their novel 3D Electrode Architecture (3DEA®) design and reinventing a simpler cell manufacturing process that reduces CapEx and OpEx each by more than half.
With early proof points of the science of 3DEA® being proved and novel cell manufacturing methods demonstrated, the team is now focussed on expanding to pilot scale manufacturing of the cells and achieving consistency in output cells, and standardization of the manufacturing processes.
In e-TRNL Energy’s case, our belief has matured around one central thesis:
If you design the cell differently, you design the factory differently.
And if you design the factory differently, you change the cost curve.
The energy transition is a cost curve story. And cost curves are manufacturing stories.
India’s energy ambitions are large — EV adoption, grid storage, renewable integration.
But building cell capacity alone is not enough. If battery technology can be manufactured more simply and cost-effectively, it opens the door for broader adoption and more competitive domestic production.
That is the deeper thesis behind our continued partnership.
Deep tech is rarely glamorous in the early years. It is iterative. It is disciplined. It is patient.
The journey from architectural innovation to scaled production is long and non-linear. But the companies that rethink the invisible layers — the ones inside factories — are often the ones that build enduring advantage.
We believe e-TRNL Energy understands this deeply. And that’s why we’re doubling down.
We welcome IAN Alpha Fund, Navam Capital and other supporters on board. Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain (co-founders of Ather Energy) join in as angels, formalizing the support and encouragement they have provided to e-TRNL Energy all these years.
We wish Apoorv, Uttam and the entire e-TRNL Energy team the best as they aim to make India a leader in cell manufacturing.
Our journey with e-TRNL Energy reflects the philosophy we hold dear at Speciale Invest: to back deep-science founders who operate on long horizons, where patient capital meets purposeful innovation.
Read our note on our investment in e-TRNL Energy’s pre-seed round in December 2022.
If you’re building something ambitious and exciting in semiconductors and the broader deep science and deep tech, we’d love to hear from you on info@specialeinvest.com