VentureBeat

Battery maker A123 Systems has secured its place as the most heavily funded battery startup, adding $30 million in its fifth round of funding.

Early this year, A123 broke $100 million. The Watertown, Mass. company, which is developing new lithium ion technology, already has some products on the market, mainly batteries for hand-held power tools. More importantly, companies like General Electric are considering its technology for use in upcoming hybrid vehicles.

A123 has shown itself to be rather aggressive, chasing down potential customers and acquiring Hymotion, a related battery tech firm, and with the potential for battery storage technology, it’s no surprise that plenty of firms are ready to invest.

The company didn’t disclose which investor led the round, but aside from a number of well known venture and private equity firms — Sequoia Capital, North Bridge Venture Partners, CMEA Ventures, FA Technology Ventures, OnPoint and Carruth Management — several other large institutions invested, including General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Alliance Capital, Motorola, Qualcomm, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Desh Deshpande, who is the company’s chairman.

Other lithium ion battery companies include San Francisco’s Li*On Cells and Fremont, Calif.’s Mobius Power (see our June coverage). Other battery companies working with lithium ion or some other material include Valence, Saft, EEStor and Infinite Power Solutions.

E Ink, the company that supplies “paper like” electronic display technology for the new Sony Reader and other Ebooks, is benefiting from recent attention, including reports that Amazon will use it for its rumored upcoming Ebook

The Cambridge, Mass. company has just raised $16 million in a second round of funding, having already raised a significant $150 million. The decade-old company is still not profitable, perhaps because the concept of an Ebook has had limited success so far. Early companies were NuvoMedia and SoftBook, bought by Gemstar in 2000. It’s still not clear how much demand there will be for the updated Sony Reader, released Oct 2.

In June, VentureBeat’s Dan Kaplan did a good summary of the cool technology emerging in the flexible chip/display area, some of it quite hyped.

FA Technology Ventures and other undisclosed previous investors participated in the latest round. Other existing backers include Air Products and Chemicals, Eastward Capital, Intel Capital, Motorola Corp., Philips Venture Capital Fund and Toppan Printing.