Shifang Technology, a specialist in digital inkjet printing for functional industrial coatings, has closed two consecutive funding rounds, securing nearly RMB 300 million from Series B through the Series B+ finale. NIO Capital joins the investor roster.

Carl Guan, Partner at NIO Capital, commented:

"We have long tracked technological innovation and advanced manufacturing upgrades across the new energy value chain. Shifang Technology has carved a clear niche with its industrial digital inkjet platform, delivering a battery insulation coating solution that balances safety, throughput, and cost-effectiveness—and has already won over multiple tier-one customers. What stands out most is the team's expertise, cross-disciplinary R&D capabilities, and demonstrated agility in rapid iteration and on-time delivery. As battery safety regulations tighten and manufacturing shifts toward digital, flexible production, digital inkjet is poised to displace legacy processes at an accelerating pace, with clear extension opportunities into PCBs, photovoltaics, and beyond."

"NIO Capital looks forward to a long-term partnership with Shifang Technology, supporting the company as it fortifies its technological moat, scales production, and matures into a globally competitive industrial digital inkjet platform player."

Founded in 2020, Shifang Technology develops high-precision, high-viscosity, micron-grade digital inkjet core components and full-system solutions for functional coatings. The company has launched the world's first commercial UV inkjet printing engine for functional coatings, with deployments spanning new energy batteries, PCB manufacturing, and automotive production.

In the battery sector, conventional cell insulation has long relied on film-wrapping—a mature and lightweight approach, but one increasingly strained by the industry's pivot to larger-format cells. Yield rates are slipping, interfacial aging is accelerating, and blistering failures are becoming more frequent. More recently, UV spraying has emerged as an alternative, yet it remains hampered by complex masking steps, suboptimal edge definition, and low material utilization—all of which drive up total costs.

Against this backdrop, UV inkjet printing is gaining traction as a next-generation upgrade path. By precisely jetting material onto cell surfaces and curing it on demand with light, the technique enables far finer coating control. Compared with incumbent methods, it delivers higher yields, slashes material waste, lowers capital expenditure significantly, and affords greater flexibility in tailoring coating properties to specific performance requirements.

A core differentiator for Shifang Technology is its full-stack, in-house development of printing engine subsystems—from control boards and ink delivery systems to software algorithms and fluidics. This vertical integration gives the company end-to-end command over hardware, software, flow dynamics, and material compatibility.

Industrial functional coating printing, the company notes, is not merely about "getting material out of the nozzle"; success hinges on tight system-level synergy among materials, equipment, and process parameters. To that end, Shifang operates the Praxis Functional Coating Laboratory, dedicated to new process incubation, material qualification, print-performance verification, and film-property testing—guiding customers from initial material validation through to production ramp-up.

To date, Shifang has partnered with more than 50 material suppliers worldwide, and its qualified material systems are now embedded in the supply chains of multiple leading battery manufacturers. For clients with proprietary ink formulations, the company can perform full validation across material properties, printing behavior, coating performance, and system integration, offering a turnkey bridge from engine hardware to process tuning and mass-production deployment.

To address the diverse requirements of different industrial scenarios, Shifang has developed two dedicated product lines. The XF Series comprises high-tact, high-viscosity printing engines engineered for large-volume, high-speed production. With a maximum single-dot volume of 160 picoliters and a maximum single-pass coating thickness of 120 micrometers, the XF Series is aimed at high-viscosity, thick-film applications such as battery insulation layers and perovskite functional coatings. The P Series, by contrast, consists of precision engines built for low-ink-volume, high-accuracy applications. Its minimum droplet size is just 3 picoliters, and it can achieve coating thicknesses as thin as 1 micrometer. This series is designed for PCBA conformal coating, solid-state battery adhesive-frame printing, and semiconductor applications where micron-level precision is non-negotiable.

New energy batteries remain Shifang's largest end market. The company has served more than five top-tier battery producers, with over 5 million cells coated via its printing engines. In mass-production projects, Shifang's self-developed hardware and software support top‑spray, side‑spray, and multi‑angle printing, accommodating prismatic, cylindrical, and blade‑type cell formats. Key performance metrics include a one‑pass yield exceeding 98%, material utilization above 99%, and line tact speeds reaching up to 56 PPM, all of which meet the stringent demands of energy‑storage and EV battery production for coating consistency, quality, and throughput. Meanwhile, as solid‑state battery commercialization accelerates, tighter specifications for insulation and sealing have opened a new application front in adhesive‑frame printing. Digital inkjet addresses the poor precision and low efficiency of traditional methods in this space, and Shifang is already conducting joint process development with multiple leading battery makers.

Meanwhile, PCBA conformal coating is shaping up as the company's second growth engine. The industry standard today remains atomized spray and needle dispensing—processes that operate at nanoliter droplet scales and require manual masking and path programming, limiting both precision and speed. Shifang's P Series, with its picoliter-level droplet control, achieves thickness accuracy within ±10% of target values across thicknesses from 1 to 50 μm, and enables variable-thickness patterning in a single pass. Moreover, the system supports automated digital avoidance of prohibited coating zones via imported or camera-generated templates, eliminating masking and path-planning steps altogether—boosting production efficiency by an order of magnitude or more over conventional approaches.

Behind the company's commercial momentum is the fact that over 35% of Shifang's workforce holds master's or doctoral degrees, and R&D personnel account for more than 80% of total staff. The core R&D leadership comprises Ph.D. and master's graduates from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Harbin Institute of Technology, and other top Chinese institutions. The company has secured more than 100 patents covering inkjet printing, droplet observation, ink-path control, and automation optimization.