Boston-Power, a Westborough, MA-based advanced lithium-ion battery developer, announced it has brought on Keith Schmid as its new chief executive. He replaces CEO and founder Christina Lampe-Onnerud, who will move to the position of executive chairman.
Schmid comes most recently from Power Distribution, a Virginia-based provider of electrical power distribution equipment and services that saw its revenues triple under his leadership, according to today’s announcement. “We’ve got some great momentum,” he said of Boston-Power in a phone call today. “I’m pleased to be part of the team and help the company continue to scale in the marketplace.”
Lampe-Onnerud said she will continue to be involved in developing the company vision and market activities. “I have an opportunity now to do what I think every entrepreneur dreams of,” Lampe-Onnerud told me on the phone today. “We have built a company that has now scaled. I’m very happy that the board has made the decision to grow the management team.”
Boston-Power is developing lithium-ion batteries with chemistry and engineering technology that the company says makes them safer, more reliable, longer-lasting, and more eco-friendly than existing technologies, for applications ranging from consumer electronics to cars. For example, the company supplies the battery for the electronic vehicle Saab is developing, the 9-3 ePower.
Boston-Power pulled in a $66.4 million Series E round of venture funding this summer, led by Foundation Asset Management and Oak Investment Partners with participation from Venrock Associates and Gabriel Venture Partners. That financing brought the company’s total funding pot to more than $191 million.
Lampe-Onnerud says that in the last year, the firm has landed customer contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and that those will carry the company through the next five years. She also sees the company’s battery product having bigger applications in developing countries in the coming year, by coupling with solar and wind technologies to help power remote villages.
“We are a technology that works,” she says.
