AcouBatt, a spinout from University College London, has raised £1.1 million in pre-seed funding to improve real-time diagnostics in lithium-ion battery manufacturing. The round was led by Creator Fund with participation from Ada Ventures, and the company was supported to market by UCL Ventures. AcouBatt uses acoustic sensors and artificial intelligence to detect hidden defects, reduce waste, and accelerate production for battery manufacturers.
Turning a Battery Industry Black Box into Actionable Insight
Lithium-ion battery production faces a particularly difficult challenge during formation, when newly made cells are charged and discharged for the first time. This step can take up to two weeks and often provides manufacturers with limited real-time visibility into whether a battery is developing correctly. AcouBatt addresses that gap by detecting tiny acoustic emissions produced by physical and chemical changes inside each cell without opening or damaging it.
The company combines acoustic and electrochemical data with proprietary AI models to distinguish meaningful battery activity from background noise. This creates a digital stethoscope for batteries, allowing manufacturers to monitor each cell and identify signs of defects or abnormal behaviour far earlier than conventional testing methods. According to co-founder and CEO Dr Arthur Fordham, advanced diagnostics are the next major frontier because operators need to understand battery condition throughout the entire working life.
Research Foundation and Commercial Validation
AcouBatt was founded in 2025 by Dr Arthur Fordham and Chris Haoxin Xu, building on more than a decade of research at UCL's Electrochemical Innovation Lab. The underlying work was supported by the Faraday Institution and the SafeBatt project, giving the spinout a strong scientific foundation. UCL Ventures helped form the company and assigned the core intellectual property to support its route to market.
The technology is currently being evaluated at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, the national battery scale-up facility. This deployment is helping AcouBatt benchmark its diagnostics ahead of wider commercial launch, with commercial-scale products planned for the industry next year. Will Mortimore, Senior Business Manager at UCL Ventures, said the spinout shows how outstanding research can become practical support for the lower carbon transition.
Scaling for Manufacturing and Beyond
AcouBatt reports that its approach can reduce formation time by up to 30 percent while maintaining battery performance. By identifying when key formation processes are complete, the platform helps manufacturers remove conservative time buffers without compromising quality. It also flags abnormal behaviour that may indicate a developing fault, allowing defective cells to be inspected before they progress through production or reach customers.
Beyond manufacturing, AcouBatt is exploring applications in battery energy storage systems. There, operators could identify underperforming or failing cells before they lead to safety incidents or unplanned downtime. The company also believes the underlying technology could eventually monitor battery health in electric vehicles and other battery-powered systems throughout their operational life.
The new capital will expand the technical team, develop AI models, and advance industrial pilot programmes with battery manufacturers. Co-founder and Commercial Director Chris Haoxin Xu said the technology opens the door for manufacturers to cut waste, optimise processes, and bring safer, better batteries to market more quickly. This strategy reflects a broader effort to move from laboratory validation to real-world industrial impact.
AcouBatt's £1.1 million pre-seed round highlights investor confidence in tools that increase transparency across battery production. By turning acoustic signals into actionable insight, the company is working to reduce scrap, improve safety, and accelerate the delivery of reliable batteries. As demand for lithium-ion technology grows, solutions that address manufacturing bottlenecks will play an increasingly important role in energy security and the transition to a lower carbon economy.