CelLink, a California startup with a pathbreaking product that replaces conventional wiring harnesses, stated it has closed a $250 million funding spherical backed by a number of massive auto trade gamers.

CelLink has developed a brand new methodology of connecting battery cells and packs, and transferring energy and information throughout car sensors, modules and digital management models, in response to the corporate. Based in 2011 and primarily based in San Carlos, CelLink has been scaling up manufacturing of its light-weight versatile circuits since 2019.

A single large-area “flex harness” can mix the features of a number of conventional wiring harnesses, the corporate stated Wednesday. This might considerably cut back weight, mass and value, whereas enabling extra automated and modular car meeting, it stated.

“We’re in lots of of hundreds of electrical automobiles now,” CEO Kevin Coakley stated in an interview.

Whereas he declined to specify which car producers are utilizing CelLink flex harnesses, Tesla is the one U.S. carmaker that has produced that many EVs.

CelLink, which has raised about $315 million, stated the most recent funds might be used to construct a manufacturing unit in Georgetown, Texas, that can open later this yr.

“We’re constructing a 25-line manufacturing unit (there) and all these strains are spoken for,” Coakley stated.

Ultimately, he stated, CelLink expects to search out functions for its merchandise in industrial automobiles, agriculture, army and aerospace.

Strategic buyers within the new spherical embrace BMW iVentures, Lear Corp, Robert Bosch Enterprise Capital and 3M, all of which had invested beforehand. One other early investor, Ford Motor Co., didn’t be part of the most recent spherical.

The Sequence D spherical was led by Boston hedge fund Whale Rock Capital and joined by T. Rowe Worth, Constancy Administration, D1 Capital Companions, Customary Investments and Atreides, in addition to present buyers Fontinalis Companions, Franklin Templeton and Tinicum Enterprise Companions.