General Motors purchases the assets of the Israeli battery start-up Algolion from Rehovot

The automobile company General Motors (GM) announced on Friday the purchase of the assets of the Israeli battery start-up Algolion from Rehovot. The amount was not reported, but it is a small deal: the startup, which has been operating for about nine years, employs about six people, who following the purchase will join the development center of General Motors in Israel, which employs about 850 people.
Algolion has developed software that tries to solve a problem that accompanies the increasing use of lithium-ion batteries: their tendency to catch fire and explode. Algolion's system is software-based, designed to monitor the condition of the battery and warn against a situation of ignition and explosion. The software measures the data - such as the voltage and current in the battery - throughout the hours of the day, analyzes using algorithms and studies the patterns over time. Thus, if changes in voltage and current are detected in the battery that predict a problem, the system knows how to warn about it - even before the battery heats up.
The founders of the company are Dr. Niels Fleischer, who holds a doctorate in electrochemistry from the Weizmann Institute, a veteran expert and entrepreneur in the field of batteries, which is his fifth start-up; and Dr. Alex Nimberger. The company was established in 2014 and was funded in its first years through grants, projects and collaborations, and in 2021 it raised $2 million from the Mobilion Foundation.
General Motors believes that Algolion's technology, which they say is capable of identifying battery problems weeks before equivalent solutions, will help make electric vehicles safer.
The purchase was led by a relatively new group at General Motors, TAC, which is supposed to identify new technologies in the field of batteries for the company. The group is headed by Gil Golan, who previously ran the development center of General Motors in Israel.