Achates Power Raises $12.1M in Venture Capital to Develop Cleaner, More Efficient Engine

It’s getting harder for San Diego’s stealthy cleantech startup Achates Power to continue flying beneath the radar. In a regulatory filing today, Achates discloses it has raised $12.125 million out of a $20 million venture round.

The company, which says in its filing that it was founded in 2007, has been developing a radical new design for a high-efficiency two-stroke automotive engine. Achates’ website says its technology was inspired by turn-of-the-century German aviation engineer Hugo Junkers’s Jumo, “the most famous engine in diesel aviation history.” Achates also notes it has been granted six U.S. patents with over 200 claims that define the patents.

Achates and its founder James Lemke have rebuffed several previous queries I’ve made about the company and its technology. While conventional engines have a single piston in each cylinder, Achates’ engine calls for two opposing pistons. The company says its approach delivers more power in less space, and boosts fuel mileage up to 100 miles per gallon. Achates apparently has begun testing a 4.2-liter engine, and has plans to license its technology to automakers.

The cleantech startup has previously acknowledged receiving an undisclosed amount of venture funding from Sequoia Capital, RockPort Capital Partners, Interwest Partners, and Madrone Capital Partners.

Madrone’s Jamie McJunkin, Sequoia’s Greg McAdoo, and RockPort’s David Prend are all listed as directors, according to the company’s regulatory filing. It also looks now like Achates is filling out its corporate structure. David Johnson is now listed as president and CEO, a position previously held by founder Lemke, an adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC San Diego. Achates regulatory filing also shows that Cary Convis, vice chairman of Dana Corp., and the former chairman of Toyota, North America, is on the board—apparently as an independent director.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.