MANHASSET, N.Y. — Startup Planar Energy Devices has secured $4 million in venture financing from Battelle Ventures and affiliate fund Innovation Valley Partners.

The company, which is developing thin-film lithium batteries, is a spinoff from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL, Golden, Colo.).

Company founder and CEO Scott Faris said that "lithium has significantly more potential than today's batteries utilize and can be to power storage what silicon is to semiconductors." Faris said Planar has so far received $1.3 million, with another $2.7 million committed, "based on milestones to be achieved."

"Thin-film batteries are projected to grow into a multi-billion-dollar component of the overall $55 billion energy-storage market, driven by wireless communications and such applications as smart cards, RFID and sensors," said Battelle Ventures general partner Kef Kasdin.

Battelle Memorial Institute manages many facilities for the U.S. Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, Kasdin said. The way the Planar investment was developed is "an excellent example of how we can leverage our unique position and act as 'founder capitalists,' building companies from the ground up," she said.

Kasdin hired Faris, who had been CEO of Waveguide Solutions, a developer of planar lightwave circuit and microsystem products that was spun out of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Faris has also served as COO of Ocean Optics, a precision-optical component and fiber-optic instrument spinout of the University of South Florida. Faris wll oversee development of NREL's business plan to commercialize the technology and manufacture thin-film batteries.