At Quantonation, we invest at the frontier of quantum technologies. Pioniq is one of our portfolio companies, and its story is also a useful illustration of how we like to work: our partner Christophe was in touch with Brigitte Leridon before Pioniq was even incorporated, and stayed close to the founders as they moved the technology out of the lab. We think both the science and that trajectory, from academic material to commercial product in two to three years, are worth sharing more broadly.

Battery fires are more common than you think.

The lithium-ion fire problem is bigger than the record shows, and growing fast. A March 2026 NIST study pieced together eight fragmented datasets and estimated that 198,000 battery fires have occurred in the US since 2011, with consumer fires up about 10% a year and EV fires roughly 45% (Link).

Safety failures have become one of the most consequential challenges facing the entire industry as energy storage scales massively across data centers, electric vehicles, aviation, medical devices and consumer electronics. This will be further exacerbated by the AI infrastructure rollout.

The root causes of most battery incidents are thermal runaway, dendrite-induced short circuits and flammable liquid electrolytes. These aren’t simply marginal engineering flaws. They are structural, chemical-level vulnerabilities that have been baked into lithium-ion technology since its inception. Each new deployment at scale amplifies the risk.

In Europe, battery safety, manufacturing resilience and next-generation chemistries have become strategic priorities through initiatives such as Battery 2030+ and Horizon Europe, which identify safer, more sustainable and higher-performing battery technologies as critical to Europe’s industrial future. Yet the fundamental safety problem remains unsolved: rather than eliminating the risk, the world has settled for managing it.

Why incremental fixes cannot solve the problem

Lithium-ion cells store energy in a chemical manner that’s inherently difficult to contain. They are flammable due to volatile liquid electrolytes and reactive electrode materials, so the safety challenge is structural, and the thermal runaway risk is ever-present. They can violently ignite when overcharged, under mechanical constraint or exposed to elevated temperature.

Most people are aware of smoldering consumer devices following near misses with lithium-ion batteries on flights, but less well known are the catastrophic fires in grid-scale storage and data center racks.

Sodium-ion chemistry is often promoted as the safer alternative. It can be discharged down to zero volts; it is less prone to dendrite formation and the cathode material tends to release less oxygen. While this technology softens the problem, it still depends on flammable liquid electrolytes and remains susceptible to thermal runaway.

Solid-state electrolytes were expected to be the answer, as eliminating the liquid reduces flammability. However, most leading solid-state approaches target metallic lithium anodes, which introduces a new hazard in the form of dendrite growth. This can pierce the electrolyte and cause internal short circuits, so the safety trade-off shifts rather than disappears.

Manufacturing compounds the problem because lithium-based materials are reactive and moisture-sensitive. This means they must be processed in expensive dry rooms under restrictive conditions to prevent contamination and process deviations, which are a major source of field failures and safety recalls.

The answer isn’t a safer version of lithium chemistry, but a different chemistry altogether, where safety is intrinsic rather than an engineered afterthought. This is exactly the kind of deep-tech, physics-first bet we look for at Quantonation.

Enter Pioniq: from fundamental physics to a new battery platform.

From left to right, Clément Barraud (COO), Brigitte Leridon (CEO) and Rémi Federicci (CTO)

Pioniq was founded in early 2024 by three physicists. Brigitte Leridon, Rémi Federicci and Clément Barraud dedicated years to fundamental research on quantum materials, which led to a materials breakthrough. The trio discovered a new class of solid-state electrolytes in which charge transport is a quantum-mechanical phenomenon.

Pioniq calls them quantum electrolytes, and they are the foundation of what the company describes as the world’s first battery built on this principle.

A co-building story

Pioniq is also a case study in what we mean when we talk about co-building at Quantonation. Christophe engaged with Brigitte before the company existed on paper. That early involvement meant Quantonation wasn’t just writing a check into a formed company but we were in the room helping think through the spin-out itself: how to structure the company, which markets to prioritize, and how to sequence the transition from academic research to a functioning industrial team.

That matters because the gap between a physics result and a product is where most deep-tech ventures stall. Academic breakthroughs routinely take a decade or more to reach commercial relevance, if they get there at all. Pioniq went from a materials discovery to functional battery prototypes, validated technology and first industrial partnerships in roughly two to three years. We don’t think that speed happened by accident. We believe this is what happens when capital paired with hands-on, early involvement can do for a team with the right scientific foundation.

What is actually “quantum” about it?

Quantum electrolytes are solid crystalline proton conductors that are derived from the perovskite family and are synthesized from abundant oxide precursors. There’s no liquid or metallic lithium, so there’s no flammable component of any kind.

In a conventional electrolyte, solvated ions migrate through a liquid medium, which is the very mechanism that creates the conditions for leakage, ignition and thermal runaway. Conduction works differently with quantum electrolytes.

In these materials, nearly-free protons move through the crystalline lattice by quantum-assisted transport. Water molecules are structurally incorporated into the crystalline material and self-organized into 1-D chains that are prone to proton conduction by quantum-tunneling effects between sites.

Recent atomistic and quantum-mechanical modeling results support a picture in which proton conductivity arises from dynamically reconfiguring hydrogen-bond networks, where structural fluctuations lower proton hopping barriers and favor Grotthuss-type transport (Link / Link).

The charge carrier is a proton moving through a solid oxide framework, so there’s no liquid to heat, no vapor to ignite and no runaway reaction to initiate. This also changes the interfacial electrochemistry: in zinc–metal oxide and zinc–air cells, the quantum electrolyte suppresses the parasitic reactions that normally degrade aqueous zinc systems, enabling reversible charge transfer and stable cycling.

Safety means little if the battery cannot compete on performance. Pioniq’s current prototypes deliver:

• Volumetric energy density of 600 Wh/L projected on the first generation of devices, with a short-term roadmap toward 1,200 Wh/L
• Estimated lifetime of more than 3,000 cycles
• Operating temperatures of -30°C to +80°C
• Rapid charging times (1C–10C)

Safer chemistry means simpler manufacturing

Pioniq’s quantum electrolytes share strong similarities with ceramic materials that are already produced in mature industrial processes. Both the electrolyte and the electrode materials can be processed under ambient conditions and shaped using conventional manufacturing routes. This means there is no need for dry rooms, inert atmospheres or hazardous precursors in the supply chain.

This simplicity compounds: new electrode materials, cell designs and chemistries can be fabricated and tested in days rather than weeks. This allows for rapid iteration and accelerated validation that’s less capital-intensive, easier to scale and faster to develop.

The approach also aligns with Europe’s broader ambition to build a competitive battery industry based on safer chemistries, resilient manufacturing and reduced dependence on critical raw materials.

The proof is in the company’s trajectory, which we’ve followed closely from the start. In fewer than two years, a lean scientific team took a laboratory discovery to functional battery prototypes, validated the underlying technology, developed first pre-products and established collaborations with major industrial partners. Simplifying the chemistry simplified the engineering.

Pioniq is targeting use cases where safety is non-negotiable, across both defense and civil markets:

• SMD-format micro-batteries integrated into electronics and IoT devices operating in constrained environments
• Large-format cells for safety-critical deployments: in-rack GPU protection in data centers, autonomous defense systems, aviation and medical devices

In these markets a single thermal runaway event can be catastrophic, so intrinsic safety is a requirement, not a nice-to-have. Beyond these safety and manufacturing advantages, the entire architecture is built on abundant, widely available oxide materials, so long-term supply resilience is a built-in property of the platform, not an aspiration.

What’s next

Pioniq has transformed a fundamental physics discovery into functional battery prototypes combining competitive energy density, stable cycling and, most importantly, safety that comes from the chemistry itself, not from workarounds layered on top of a hazardous core.

Pioniq is now scaling cell formats and partnering with industrial players to develop specific use cases for electronics and BBUs for both defense and civil sectors, and to build industrial ramp-ups.

Pioniq exemplifies what we look for at Quantonation: deep physics, capital-efficient execution, and a market where the science is the moat. It’s also a template for how we like to invest. We get involved early, sometimes before a company exists on paper, and stay close through the transition from lab to industry. If you’re a scientist or founder building at the frontier of quantum technologies, reach out to us.

You can follow Pioniq’s journey here (Website / LinkedIn).

From concept to a validated battery architecture with a quantum electrolyte at its core, in just 2.5 years of pre-seed development.