General Kinetics

Oct 10, 2012

Skolkovo Status
Cluster Grant Financing Energy Efficiency Grant application being prepared

General Kinetics (GK) develops low cost flywheel-based energy storage devices to be used as UPS & Energy storage device for networks. GK solution has a self-protection for a flywheel breaking, using commercially available components for the assembling of products with high energy and a wide range of electric power.

The Market
Project Stage
Seed (lab scale results) Early (pre-production prototype) Growth (revenue generating) Expansion (profitable)

Effective demand is ~25-30% of the total UPS market. Uninterruptible power supplies are one of the fastest growing segments in the market. According to Frost&Sullivan, the world market of UPS is $10B with the growth rate of 10-12% annually. IMS Research expect that in the near future the sales of high-power UPS (100-500 kVA) will increase at the fastest rate (almost 25% per year) and attribute this to large-scale installation of three-phase UPS, primarily in data centers, healthcare, IT and financial sectors. Competitor, Active Power (USA), leader of the U.S. market of flywheel UPS for data centers and industry, has $60M in revenues and IPOed at NASDAQ in 2002. Active Powers technology is 2x more expensive, 1/30 in capacity and 1/12 in power in comparison to that of General Kinetics.

Background Information
Target Market size Target Market $10B (global) UPS & energy storage for networks Owns the full rights to the IP

The Company
Project/Technology
General Kinetics (GK) offers flywheel energy storages (FES) with magnetic suspension flywheel that will be used in uninterruptible power supplies for consumers of high reliability electricity and for power recovery systems of the Russian Railways and other types of electric transport. Unlike the Active Power (the world leading flywheel company with $60M+ in revenue) GK offers permanent magnet-based flywheel with low energy losses. The core innovation is the magnetic suspension design which allows using permanent magnets.

IP status

Funding background
Financing Round Invested to-date Expected pre-money valuation Funding Needs, current round Expected share of the investor Round A $600K tbd $1.5M minority

Proven advantages of the technology over main competitors

Confirmed features: energy capacity 4-12 MJ, power 5-100 kW, high performance, ease of use.

Expected advantages of the technology over main competitors

Expected life cycle of the GK FES is 20 years; operating temperatures from -40 to +50 deg. C. Designed seismic stability of the system is 40 seconds without damage at magnitude 7.6 on the Richter scale. Such specifications of chemical accumulators are difficult to achieve. Components and materials of electrochemical accumulators being the direct competitor of FES can be environmentally hazardous and require special methods of disposal, while FES components are absolutely safe. Besides, FES does not lose capacity even after hundreds of thousands of energy accumulation and delivery cycles.

Contact details
Skolkovo Investment office General Kinetics Petr Lukyanov plukyanov@sk.ru Alexander Katsay proton@rhsc.ru

Current R&D Status

Successful four MJ/22 kW prototype testing completed. Pre-industrial samples are under development. The prototype of kinetic energy storage was built, held its benchmark tests. First orders from customers received. Further steps: prototype testing on-site customer and release of a pilot lot. General kinetics will be ready for mass production within 8-12 months.

Team
Alexander Katsay , CEO, over 12 years of experience in the energy industry, including executive management and business development at Rosatom and JSC "Russian Communal Systems". Founded company Russian superconductor with RUR1B revenues. Dr. Nurbey Gulia, CTO, Dr. Tech Sc., Professor, Russian scientist and inventor in the field of energy storage (flywheel, stepless mechanical drive, hybrid vehicle powertrains), popularizer of science and technology. Full member of the International Academy of Ecology. Head of Machine Parts Dept. of Moscow State Industrial Univ. Member of the Writers' Union of Russia.

Investment Opportunity
General Kinetics is seeking $1,5M Round A financing in addition to $0,5M Skolkovo grant to run further R&D, produce 100+ pre-industrial samples, test full-scale in the industry and get ready for mass production within 8-12 months.