Maxwell+spark is an innovative lithium-ion battery manufacturer based in South Africa and The Netherlands. CEO Dr Clinton Bemont and CCO Ebén Joubert discussed with Hannah Barnett the company’s mission to transform outdated energy technology in industrial and commercial environments.
Maxwell+spark offers lithium-ion battery systems that electrify industrial mobility, delivering reduced lifetime cost, improved useability and uptime, simplicity and data-driven decision making.
“Coming from South Africa, we knew from day one that we weren’t going to get big subsidies from governments,” said Dr Clinton Bemont, CEO. “We also weren’t going to get companies buying our products because they wanted to be green. The only way we were going to make an impact is to make cost effective, reliable and usable products. We’ve built that into the fabric of the company.”
Of course, the Maxwell+Spark battery systems also deliver environmental solutions for massive reduction of carbon emissions.
This combination of a cost-effective and sustainable solution already makes the company stand out, but its agile workforce puts it truly ahead of the pack.
“The depth of competence within engineering and design is second to none,” said Ebén Joubert, CCO. “It allows us to compete in global markets. We design unique solutions and have personal relationships with our end-users. Understanding the final application and designing that into our products is really embedded here.”
A spark of an idea Team members began designing and manufacturing lithium-ion batteries in 2011. Dr Bemont, who was a university academic
at the time, founded the company alongside three post-graduates in 2017 and business commenced on a substantial scale in 2018.
“Being founded in a less structured way than some startups has pros and cons,” Dr Bemont reflected. “The pros are that we have a lot of creativity, flexibility and innovative thinking. The cons are that none of us had much business experience, so we didn’t always put the proper systems in place. In some cases, it took time to realise how critical those things are.
Starting in South Africa was also formative in other ways, and one of our core intentions was to create good jobs in South Africa; we’ve been pretty successful in that.”
Maxwell+spark has about 150 employees with over 70 technical degrees between them. The company is active on three continents, with production sites in Durban and Rotterdam, plus personnel and distribution partners in the United States, where it plans to open an assembly plant in the coming years.
The business has enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of over 70% since inception.
“That is brilliant, but it is also very challenging from a manufacturing point of view, because we’re simultaneously scaling production across three continents,” said Mr Joubert.
“And there’s that South African mentality. We get things done. A lot of what people in
the Western world take for granted are not a given in SA. But that mentality has secured the company and helped us to grow.”
Optimising industry
Fundamentally, maxwell+spark was founded to transition the industrial mobility and logistics sector to clean energy. It expanded into stationary applications by offering a second life option for mobile batteries.
“We have been building batteries in significant volume since late 2018,” Dr Bemont explained. “Those early batteries have surprising longevity and are still fully operational, but they won’t run in their current applications forever. So we’re looking at switching them into stationary applications efficiently, where energy density isn’t as important. We have significant R&D in this space and have lodged two patents.”
The company works across the standard FMCG chain, including supplying material handling equipment at production sites and warehouses, plus powering refrigerated delivery trucks and trailers.
“The mobility within that ecosystem is what we electrify,” explained Mr Joubert. “For the second- or third-life options of those batteries, we’ll use them as stationary standby backup power. Because we use the same components and telemetry across products, customers have a full lifecycle view of the first-, second- and third-life application of the batteries in their system.”
As it steadily sells more stationary batteries, maxwell+spark and customers are becoming deeply data driven. Customers can analyse how efficiently forklifts are working with refrigerator trucks, or whether there’s peaking on the substation during charging, all of which can be amalgamated into one set of data.
One happy customer is South African chilled food supplier Bidfood. “Bidfood has seen huge advantages,” said Dr Bemont.
“The data benefits the company even more than we thought it would. Both from
a practical perspective, regarding the way the equipment works, how to maintain it and total cost of ownership, to how Bidfood can analyse data to optimise feedback in, for example, future equipment mix.”
Sealing the deal
Another way maxwell+spark maintains a competitive edge is by optimisation of its supply chain.
This includes close relationships with suppliers, such as those that custom fabricate sheet metal, like Afrilaser and Steelcom Engineering in South Africa, Hieselaar in the Netherlands and Seibel Modern in New York State. As part of its supply chain optimisation, the company sources as locally as possible, reducing logistics costs and associated CO2 emissions.
“Getting reliability and quality from suppliers is critical,” Dr Bemont explained. “This means ensuring they have the right equipment, the right QC processes and systems, the right logistics processes, the right communication systems. It’s highly complex and something we’ve put a lot of effort into. In South Africa, we have someone that’s employed full time just to physically QC our suppliers.”
The company continues to enhance efficiency and uptime in the industries it works in. This success will fuel further growth in Europe and the USA, as well as maintaining the footprint in South Africa, where maxwell+spark has made a significant impact on the materials handling space already.
“South Africa probably has the highest penetration in the world, by some way, other than perhaps China, of lithium-ion batteries
in materials handling, and we know we have played a big role in that,” said Dr Bemont. “That’s saved the SA economy money, created jobs and reduced carbon emissions. We’re now making a big impact in the United States, with a significant footprint in the transport refrigeration space too, and we will continue to use data analysis to drive efficiency, design and optimisation of our user’s operations.
“When it comes to the batteries themselves, we have at least one piece of IP that makes them both cheaper and safer than our competitors. Maybe some can do one or the other, but not usually both. That same technology gives them a longer lifecycle too. Plus,
we have a set of IP with a significant amount of EU funding behind it to further develop. We’ll probably be releasing that commercially in 2026.”
Having already achieved big things, it is clear that maxwell+spark is headed for more.
For Dr Bemont, the motivation comes from making whatever difference he can.
“I think electrification is important geopolitically, and that that’s important to me,” he said, in conclusion. “It’s the technological progress of civilization. Yes, it’s one little rung near the bottom of a very long ladder, but it’s moving us in the right direction. I’m a believer that technology benefits humankind and I want to be part of that.” n
