A RAPIDLY-expanding firm set to produce the next generation of batteries for electric cars, telephones and laptops has been given a £40m boost.

Nexeon, based at Milton Park, near Didcot, has been given the cash injection by investors as it looks to develop a full-scale manufacturing plant.

It means the Oxfordshire workforce will expand from 40 to 50 this year and a further 40 jobs could be created at the new plant, which will be located within 50 miles of its headquarters.

Chairman Dr Paul Atherton said: “We are looking at a range of options at the moment and hope to find a plant by the end of the year.”

The plant will manufacture silicon anodes for batteries instead of existing carbon technology which will provide a range of benefits including longer life, higher performance and reduced weight.

Dr Atherton, who founded the company in 2005 with Prof Mino Green at Imperial College, London, said the aim was to create a plant that would produce 250 tonnes of the silicon material a year. After that production could be scaled up to as much as 4,000 tonnes.

Ultimately he hopes to set up manufacturing plants around the world to service the needs of battery manufacturers in countries such as the United States and China as demand for hand-held multi-media devices grows.

He added: “One of the real benefits of this is that manufacturers have to change virtually nothing — they simply replace the carbon with the silicon.”

The latest tranche of cash came from existing investors Imperial Innovations Group and included Invesco Perpetual.

It brings total investment in Nexeon to £55m.

In June Nexeon was presented with the Green Technology award at science and technology fair Venturefest in recognition of the company’s innovative technology and demonstrable commercial potential.

Nexeon chief executive Scott Brown said: “We are well placed and very much on track to meet our customers’ needs and to achieve our commercial ambitions.”