News

Battery-Maker Imara Closes Shop

December 10, 2009 by Jeff Shepard

Only weeks after a national magazine named it one of the 10 green companies to watch in 2010, battery startup Imara Corp. announced that it has ceased operations. The company had experienced a delay in ramping up operations and failed to gain investors to build a factory. Imara had started to produce prototype and sample quantities of batteries in its Menlo Park, Calif. facility, but it had announced intentions to scale up with a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.

"It certainly did not help that hundred of millions in DOE stimulus funds went to two Korean companies and one French company, Saft," commented Neal Maguire, Vice President of Business Development. "We are all still far better off with EVs and HEVs but unless something radically changes, the battery business is for big players that want to create billion dollar business units not VC-backed startups."

Imara employed 38 scientists and engineers. It will try to sell its assets and intellectual property but right now the company is not in operation.