theion, the lithium-sulfur battery start-up, that wants to revolutionize mobile and stationary energy storage has enlarged its Management. The appointment of Martin Schaupp (CTO) and Matthias Fengler (CFO) further builds on the company’s road-map pushing the product and process development to the next level and to structure the speeding up of the company’s organization.
Martin Schaupp – Chief Technology Officer
Martin Schaupp has been appointed as CTO. He holds a diploma in Computer Science and Automation Technology. He has a wealth of experience in scaling pilot processes to mass production for commercial manufacturing of Li-Ion Batteries, Modules and Packs. Martin has over 20 years of experience with major global automation and equipment manufacturers including Manz and Festo. His appointment will provide theion with access to a wide network of battery and equipment suppliers to lead the rapid development of theion’s sulfur-crystal battery on its path to full-scale commercialization. Martin will be responsible for developing the processes and specifying and partly building the equipment required to produce co-founder and CSO Marek Slavik’s cell designs at scale.
Matthias Fengler – Chief Financial Officer
Also joining the theion team, Matthias Fengler has been appointed as theion’s first CFO. He holds a diploma in business administration and spent over a decade in finance roles at Siemens as well as seven years in Investment Banking at among others, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. There he was responsible for Corporate Finance, Capital Markets and M&A transactions.
With his longstanding experience and in-depth expertise, he takes full responsibility for the entire finance function of the company. Matthias will especially focus on financing the growth of the company as well as on further developing and managing the network of theion’s private and institutional investors.
Dr. Ulrich Ehmes, CEO, commented: “We are happy to strengthen our Management Team with Martin and Matthias. Both have significant experience with large-scale industrial companies that have successfully brought engineering led products to market. Martin’s expertise will boost our capability to engineer and scale our batteries. Matthias will add value with his network and by having successfully led Corporate Finance projects. They bring a wealth of knowledge in an industrial environment, and how to structure and speed-up the organizational development of theion. The appointments come at an exciting time for the company as we hit the milestones we have set ourselves on the product roadmap and build momentum to propel the company to the next level.”
theion’s battery innovation is based on sulfur – a material available in abundance without harmful mining (a byproduct of industrial processes). Sulfur replaces cathode materials with high processing cost and high metal content like nickel and cobalt. As a result, sulfur is not only 99% cheaper to source than the cathode materials used in existing state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, but theion’s battery cells also require 90% less energy to produce – from raw material to finished cell.
