June 30, 2021, Shanghai Chemspec Corporation, the industry leader in providing fluorinated specialty chemicals, completed a new round of strategic financing containing hundreds of millions of RMB with the suppors from investors, such as, Zhongqi Capital, Cathay Capital, Bridge Capital, China Universal Asset Management, ShangCap Partners and Suzhou Fund. The fund will be used for enhancing the company’s technology development, encouraging employees and expanding its capacity.
V-Fund has discovered and invested in Chemspec Corporation as far back as November, 2018. After becoming a shareholder of Chemspec Corporation, V-Fund has actively provided resources and information regarding relevant companies, supporting and assisting Chemspec Corporation in operating, strategic planning and many other aspects, helping the company develop more comprehensively.
Chemspec Corporation
Founded in 1996, Chemspec Corporation has always been technology-driven and dedicated to the study of fluorinated specialty chemicals. Based on its continuous investment in R&D and fully experienced product transformation, the company has formed a fluorinated specialty chemical manufacturer with organofluoride technique and carbon-carbon bond coupling technique as its core. After the formation of the technology platform, Chemspec Corporation has discovered various applicable products from Liquid Crystal Display materials, medicine intermediates, pesticides intermediates, chemical intermediates, technical materials, new energy battery materials to silicone. The company’s customers mainly focused on European, American and Japanese companies that works on materials, pharmaceuticals and pesticides. In recent years, Chemspec Corporation began to focus more on developing domestic customers, this enables the company to further expand its business scale.
Chemspec Corporation has been committed to the R&D of high-tech, high value-added, independent innovation of fluorinated specialty chemicals. With the active expansion of product application and the industry leading technology, the company currently holds 62 patents, including 51 patents for invention.
Since 2013, the company has been devoted to the R&D of Lithium Salt LiFSI. In 2016, Chemspec Corporation became the first company in China to achieve mass production on LiFSI. As the government posts higher and higher regulations on the energy density and security levels of new energy vehicles, the batteries must reach for higher voltage and lower risk. This provides LiFSI with a greater chance of development, thanks to its low risk, higher stability features. LiFSI is superior to the existing mainstream Lithium Salt LiPF6 in terms of both temperature stability and electrical conductivity. It is also gradually becoming available for industrial production. Therefore, whether as a general lithium salt additive or as a core solute, LiFSI would always have considerable development potential and market space.
However, compared with the huge demand and development potential, few manufacturers can achieve stable mass production of LiFSI neither in China nor abroad. But Chemspec Corporation, relying on its rich experience in fluorination technology, solved the technical issue in the transformation from R&D to mass production, becoming one of the few enterprises domestic and abroad to master the key technologies of LiFSI and successfully achieve mass production. Even among these few enterprises, Chemspec Corporation is still in the lead regarding the technological level, product capacity and quality.
Dr. Yang Jianhua, founder of Chemspec Corporation, said, “As a technology-driven enterprise, Chemspec Corporation has been working continuously in the field of fluorinated specialty chemicals for many years. As the core result of our research and development, LiFSI made the company a leader in the field of new lithium salts for new energy battery. The continuous product innovation and the product promotion enables the company to lead the industry of fluorinated specialty materials and the new energy lithium salts battery material.
The company will continue to focus on R&D and the development of the core project. At the same time, it will also be responsible for its employees, customers and shareholders!” Zhang Dong, the General Manager of Zhongqi Capital, said, “Zhongqi Capital is a marketized private equity investment institution jointly established by Sinochem and Tus Holdings. The major shareholders of Zhongqi Capital have been deeply engaged in the fluorinated specialty chemicals for more than 60 years and form these sixty year they have gained great resourses. Chemspec Corporation is a leading company in fluorinated specialty chemicals in China, with outstanding R&D capability. Its original fluorine-containing LCD materials and fluorine-containing lithium battery materials are in leading position of the industry. It also has a high degree of industrial synergy with Zhongqi Capital. After the strategic investment in Chemspec Corporation, Zhongqi Capital will make full use of its industrial, technological and financial resources to support Chemspec Corporation and help it grow.”
Wu Fan, Managing Director of Cathay Capital, said, “Cathay Capital invested in Chemspec Corporation mainly beacuase of its powerful R&D ability and the potential of its products, especially the new energy battery material LiFSI which has entered the mass production state. The new energy vehicle industry is going through rapid change these years, with the increase in command and demand for smarter products, the standards for battery are also raised. LiFSI, as a new type of lithium salt, will significantly improve battery performance in terms of temprature stability, low-temperature performance, electrical conductivity, battery lifespan, etc. With its advantage of expanding the horizons of this field, all-covering patent, mature technique and low production cost, as well as the rich international resources and unique 3C empowerment platform provided by Cathay Capital, we believe that Chemspec Corporation will grow rapidly and become a world-leading lithium battery material company.”