Illuminating the Future of Battery Technology: An Interview with Christoph Schnedermann of Illumion
In the fast-evolving world of energy storage, breakthroughs in battery technology are critical to shaping a sustainable future. At the forefront of this innovation is Illumion, a deep-tech company leveraging advanced optical techniques to revolutionize battery development. Christoph Schnedermann, its founder and CEO, discusses his journey, the company’s vision, and his insights on leadership and fundraising.
Could you tell us a bit about your background and how Illumion started?
Certainly! I originally hail from Germany and spent eight years at Oxford University, where I pursued a PhD in ultrafast spectroscopy. My academic journey then took me to Harvard where I worked on water splitting, a key technology behind artificial leaf research. Eventually, I moved to Cambridge to focus on physics and energy materials, which ultimately led to my deep interest in battery technology.
Recognizing the long development cycle of battery materials, which often takes a decade, my co-founders and I saw an opportunity to introduce a more efficient approach. That’s how Illumion was born. We are a hard-tech company specializing in scientific instrumentation that uses an optical technique to observe the real-time changes in battery materials during operation. We actually track ion flows within materials, which eliminates much of the trial and error in formulation, accelerating the discovery and optimization of new materials.
That sounds amazing. And what are your key goals for Illumion over the next few years?
Right now, we are focused on scaling our impact in the battery R&D sector, which is a $3 billion market. Initially, our instrument is targeted at academic institutions and early-stage R&D departments and we have already made initial instrument sales. Over the next few years, we aim to expand into battery manufacturing and recycling, both of which can benefit immensely from our real-time material analysis.
Our long-term vision is to establish Illumion as a platform technology in areas beyond batteries; observing real-time ion flows in materials has potential applications in areas like catalysis, bio interfaces and even memory storage. In the next 5 years though, our aim is to sell hundreds of our instruments globally, transforming the way energy storage materials are developed and commercialized.
You have transitioned from a technical role to CEO. What advice would you give to aspiring startup leaders?
Becoming a CEO has been a transformative experience. Moving from an academic career to leading a company meant developing resilience, mastering stakeholder management, and staying 100% focused on our vision despite the inevitable challenges. At one point, we came close to shutting down operations, which was incredibly stressful and reinforced the importance of managing uncertainty and having the right support network, equally both personal and professional.
Above all though, building a strong team and maintaining a clear sense of purpose has been essential.
What fundraising lessons have you learned that might help other founders?
Fundraising is always more challenging and time-consuming than expected. It took us 12 months and over 50 investor conversations to secure our seed round.
The key lessons for me were: Start early, keep conversations going, and find investors who truly understand the timescales around deep-tech rather than just looking for the fast, hockey-stick type returns.
We also made sure to conduct due diligence on investors, not just them on us, to ensure that we had the right long-term partners on our CAP table. Leveraging grants and public funding was another crucial strategy to reduce dilution and extend our runway.
Our recent £2.1M seed round was led by Foresight Group, with participation from Cambridge Enterprise, Parkwalk Advisors and Cambridge Angels. This, along with our pre-seed funding of £650k, has positioned us to now accelerate our growth.
How has having Cambridge Angels as part of your investor group benefited Illumion?
Having Cambridge Angels on board has been incredibly valuable. Their experience and network have provided strategic guidance beyond just funding. The Cambridge ecosystem is highly connected and this has opened doors to key hires and partnerships; our Chief of Staff, for instance, came through an indirect connection. The right introductions and insights at the right time have made all the difference.