When Limatech's EIC Accelerator Aircraft Battery Found No Buyers

Aircraft and helicopters still start their engines with lead-acid or nickel-cadmium batteries, heavy and toxic chemistries that aviation has kept because lithium cells can overheat. Limatech, a 2016 spin-out of France's atomic and alternative energy commission (CEA), built protective electronics meant to make lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries safe enough for certified aircraft. In the EIC Accelerator pilot's Green Deal cut-off of 19 May 2020, the European Commission selected it for blended finance, and the ORION project received an EU grant of €2,038,597 towards a total cost of €3,233,750, according to CORDIS.

The certificates came. The customers did not. On 9 April 2026 the Toulouse commercial court opened receivership proceedings against Limatech, and on 11 June 2026 it converted them into a judicial liquidation and appointed a liquidator, according to the official gazette BODACC. Lyon Capitale summed up the years in between as "une usine flambant neuve, des dizaines de millions levés et presque aucun client" (a brand-new factory, tens of millions raised and almost no customers).

Where Limatech Stands Now

Limatech is in liquidation. The BODACC notices name Selas Egide, represented by Alix Brenac, first as creditors' representative in the April 2026 receivership and then as liquidator. The court set the date on which the company stopped paying its debts at 9 April 2026, the same day the proceedings opened, as AeroMorning reported from the notice. Two weeks later, BODACC recorded small capital increases and the departure of Maxime Di Meglio as managing director (directeur général).

Lyon Capitale writes that the receivership was converted "faute de repreneur" (for lack of a buyer) and that what remains are the Voreppe site, "une poignée de salariés à reclasser" (a handful of staff to be redeployed) and patents co-signed with the CEA, which the liquidator must now sell. Whether any takeover bid was filed, and what became of the assets, could not be verified from a source that could be opened. The company website listed in the EC winner list, batteries.limatech.group, shows only the hosting provider's default page; the Wayback Machine captured the same page on 15 May 2026.

The Technology: Lithium That Will Not Run Away

Lithium cells store far more energy per kilogram than lead or nickel-cadmium, but a short circuit or deep discharge can set off thermal runaway. Limatech's answer was a battery management system with every safety function required by the aviation standard ETSO C179b built in: over and under voltage detection, cell balancing, temperature protection, lockout and a built-in heater for cold starts, according to the ORION periodic report. CORDIS says the electronics won the Airbus Aeronautical Innovation Award in 2019, which L'Info Durable also reported in June 2023.

The weight case is simple. "Notre batterie fait 6,5 kilos contre 16,5 kilos pour celles au nickel-cadmium et 17 kilos pour celles au plomb" (our battery weighs 6.5 kilos against 16.5 for nickel-cadmium and 17 for lead), Maxime Di Meglio told L'Info Durable. Florence Robin put the saving at "25 kilos pour un hélicoptère et jusqu'à 120 kilos sur un A320". The company's broader claims, that its batteries are three times lighter, 2.5 times more efficient and last 2.5 times longer than the incumbents, appear in its October 2024 press release and in an EIC Scaling Club interview; no independent test of them was found.

What ORION Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

ORION ran from 1 January 2021 to 30 June 2023 under grant agreement 101009983, signed on 29 October 2020. The EC list names no other beneficiary for the project. The CORDIS objective speaks of a "28V lithium battery range", while the periodic report and eeNews Europe's December 2020 report on the award describe a 24V range; the work plan itself was concrete. Work package 1 was to finish and certify a 24V-15Ah battery, cut from a planned 17.5Ah so that it would fit Airbus Helicopters' H125 and H130. Work package 2 was to do the same for a 24V-40Ah battery aimed at commercial and business aviation. Work package 3 covered the industrial and commercial scale-up.

The only published report is labelled period 2 (January 2022 to June 2023) on CORDIS, but its text describes the first 12 months: the 15Ah battery was in qualification, EASA had received the certification request, four patents had been accepted by France's patent office INPI, and the 40Ah battery was to be "the focus of the second part of the project". No final results for the 40Ah battery are published.

1. Certify the 24V-15Ah batteryLateCritical design review passed in January 2023 and Part 21G production approval in April 2023, per the company's release; EASA's ETSO C179b approval followed on 30 September 2024, after the project ended.
2. Certify the 24V-40Ah batteryNot achievedNo certification, product launch or sale of a 40Ah battery has been announced.
3. Industrial scale-upDeliveredVoreppe plant opened in July 2024 with an initial 500 batteries a year.
4. Market roll-out from 2023Not achievedThree batteries sold by July 2024; series production slipped to mid-2026, per Lyon Capitale.

The certification itself was a real achievement. The October 2024 release, also carried by Minalogic, says EASA granted Limatech design organisation approval under the alternative procedure (ADOA) and the first ETSO C179b approval it had issued in Europe for rechargeable lithium batteries, making it, in the company's words, "the second player worldwide authorized to commercialize its batteries for the aerospace market". An EASA department head is quoted congratulating the company, with the note that the release "is not a joint statement with EASA". The next step it named, supplemental type certificates to install the battery on specific aircraft types, was never announced as achieved.

The Factory and the Money

On 25 November 2022 the French government named Limatech a laureate of the France 2030 "Première usine" call for first factories, according to a company release; Lyon Capitale says France 2030 funded it twice. The 1,200 m² plant in Voreppe opened in the summer of 2024 at a cost of €10 million, with 10 people working there, an initial output of 500 batteries a year and a target of 10,000 a year by 2030, according to a Lyon Capitale report of August 2024. In June 2023, L'Info Durable had quoted a target of 3,500 batteries a month by 2030 and annual revenue of close to €200 million.

The sales never matched. At the July 2024 inauguration, Lyon Capitale reports, the company had sold three batteries at €10,000 each while targeting €130 million of revenue in 2028. On 11 June 2025, Lyon Capitale writes, Limatech announced a first successful flight test on an Airbus H130 helicopter; no company release on the test could be found to confirm it. Sources disagree on the money raised: Lyon Capitale says the company claimed €16 million since its creation at the inauguration and launched a €20 million round, partly open to the public, at the end of 2024, while Aurélien Gibert told the EIC Scaling Club in 2026 that "we were able to raise 20 million euros". Neither source separates equity from grants.

The filed accounts are partly confidential, so revenue and equity are not public. The financial ratios that France's patent and company office INPI publishes, available through data.economie.gouv.fr, show net losses of €706,592 in 2021, €712,052 in 2022, €1,311,362 in 2023 and €1,212,269 in 2024, the last figure confirmed by Lyon Capitale. INPI's financial autonomy ratio fell from 51.6% in 2022 to 24.1% in 2024, and its debt ratio rose from 79.3% to 285.2%. The national company directory puts the workforce at 10 to 19 employees in 2024, down from "une trentaine de salariés" (about thirty staff) reported by L'Info Durable in June 2023.

Why Europe Should Care

The CORDIS objective framed ORION around the EU Batteries Directive 2006/66/EC, which, in the objective's words, "encourages the replacement of dangerous substances in batteries (Cadmium & Lead)". Its successor, Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, aims to build a competitive European battery value chain and cut dependence on supply chains outside the EU. A certified European lithium starter battery fits both aims, and the company stressed in its ORION objective that it was "a real challenge for European technological sovereignty".

The record shows how hard that is in practice. Lyon Capitale counts six competitors in the market, "tous des multinationales" (all multinationals), and the EIC Scaling Club interview quotes Gibert saying new aerospace projects take ten to twelve years from concept to deployment. Limatech needed about eight years to get one battery approved, and its money ran out within two years of that approval.

The Verdict

Limatech, its liquidator and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.