QuantumScape, a startup that’s working on solid-state lithium-metal batteries for use in electric vehicles and is notably backed by the Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, has finalized its merger with blank-check firm Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp and debuted on the public markets on a good note, wherein its shares rose over 50% on its first trading day.

QuantumScape is now traded on the New York Stock Exchange after a decade as a private company that was spun off from the prestigious Stanford University. Among early investors in the company who have reaped sizeable profits from their stakes now on the public markets include the automaker Volkswagen, entrepreneur Bill Gates, and of course Tesla co-founder JB Straubel.

QuantumScape signed a deal to go public this September, a deal that secured over $700 million for the company both from its blank-check merger target, Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp, and other investors including asset management firms Fidelity and Janus Henderson.

Overall, QuantumScape has secured fresh funding of over $1 billion when including recent investments from the automaker Volkswagen and the Qatar Investment Authority. The company has ample cash to work towards its goal of enabling industrial-level production of solid-state batteries for use in electric vehicles.

With Volkswagen as QuantumScape’s anchor strategic investor, the automaker is the first in line to use QuantumScape’s batteries if its ambition comes to fruition.

As regards investment prospects, QuantumScape seems like an ambitious and risky bet, given that current technology has not permitted the use of solid-state batteries in mainstream electric vehicles. However, solid-state batteries are considered to be a major breakthrough that’ll widely boost the driving ranges of electric vehicles if perfected and adequately commercialized.

With that, QuantumScape is akin to a moonshot, whereas it stands to profit big if its ambitions of manufacturing adequate solid-state batteries for electric vehicles at an industrial scale comes to fruition. Having debuted on the public markets, the company now has over $1 billion in fresh funding to prove itself.

“Whoever wins the battery battle, so to speak, is going to be looking at, in our opinion, a multi-hundred billion-dollar company,” QuantumScape’s CEO Jagdeep Singh noted in a statement.

Photo: Tesla Co-Founder and QuantumScape investor JB Straubel by International Transport Forum is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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