NEO Battery Materials Ltd. (TSX-V:NBM) announced it has granted incentive stock options to researchers and commercialization engineers to acquire an aggregate of 1.3 million of its common shares.
The company also said it has promoted senior research engineer Dr Min Kim to research and development (R&D) team manager based on his performance in the optimization progress of NEO’s silicon anode along with junior and senior research engineers.
“The work of both our R&D research and commercialization engineering team has been remarkable,” NEO president and CEO Spencer Huh said in a statement. “NEO’s silicon anode material, NBMSiDE, is making considerable strides as global NDA testing partners have commented highly on the performance improvements and optimization through feedback.”
READ: NEO Battery Materials signs collaboration agreement with NanoRial Technologies Ltd for silicon anode optimization
Expanding on the terms of the option agreement, NEO said all options were granted at an exercise price of $0.40 under its stock option plan. Based on milestone contracts and transactions with global firms in the battery industry, it said the options will follow an accelerated vesting schedule in which they will vest over three years. Additional available incentives will soon be included, it added.
NEO said it also plans to shortly announce the addition of technological expertise and manpower by appointing a chief technology officer and a PhD-level senior research engineer. At the current stage of development, it said fortifying its talent pool and human capital is essential to accelerate optimization work through continuous feedback and to prepare more planned collaboration work with NDA partners.
“We aim to push our efforts to supply NBMSiDE to the EV mass market in a time-efficient manner,” Huh continued. “With greater incentive through accelerated vesting based on engineers’ performance, we are on track and confident to achieve milestone contracts with global battery players.”
NEO Battery Materials is focused on producing silicon anode materials through its proprietary single-step nanocoating process, which provides improvements in capacity and efficiency over lithium-ion batteries using graphite in their anode materials. The company intends to become a silicon anode active materials supplier to the electric vehicle industry.
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