Third Hemisphere Welcomes Sicona Battery Technologies: What a $45M ARENA Win Looks Like in Practice
By Jeremy Liddle, Co-Founder, Third Hemisphere
There are clients you take on because they need help. And then there are clients you take on because you believe in what they are building so completely that you would back them with more than your time.
Sicona Battery Technologies is the second kind.
Third Hemisphere helped Sicona announce one of the most significant clean energy milestones in Australian manufacturing this year: a $45 million grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to build Australia's first commercial-scale silicon-carbon battery anode production facility in Wollongong.
The announcement ran in the Australian Financial Review and The Australian on the same day, with coordinated statements from two federal ministers and the local Wollongong MP, and media coverage that reflected both the commercial significance and the national importance of what Sicona is doing.
We are proud to announce that Sicona Battery Technologies is now a Third Hemisphere client. And we want to use this moment to explain why this kind of company is exactly what we exist to support.
What Sicona Battery Technologies Is Building
Sicona is an Australian battery technology company developing advanced silicon-carbon anode material for lithium-ion batteries. Its proprietary SiCx® technology improves battery energy density by more than 20 per cent and enables charging speeds more than 40 per cent faster than conventional graphite-based anodes. Critically, SiCx® is compatible with existing battery manufacturing lines, which gives Sicona a commercially viable pathway to customer qualification and global supply agreements without requiring manufacturers to rebuild their production infrastructure from scratch.
The Wollongong facility, to be developed within BlueScope Steel's Port Kembla precinct, will produce up to 230 tonnes of SiCx® per annum for customer qualification and commercial sales. It will create up to 36 skilled manufacturing jobs in the Illawarra region. And it positions Australia not as a raw materials exporter, but as a manufacturer of high-value battery components for global electric vehicle, defence, AI data centre, and power tool markets.
This is sovereign manufacturing capability of the kind Australia has been talking about building for years. Sicona is actually building it.
The PR Work Behind the Announcement
A grant announcement of this scale does not land in multiple national mastheads by accident. It requires months of strategy, coordination, relationship management, and precise execution under conditions that do not always cooperate.
For the Sicona ARENA announcement, Third Hemisphere's work involved coordinating across three government offices: Minister Chris Bowen's office (Minister for Climate Change and Energy), Minister Tim Ayres' office (Minister for Industry and Innovation), and the office of Alison Byrnes, the Labor member for Cunningham, the federal electorate covering Wollongong. Each office had its own communication protocols, timing preferences, and sign-off requirements. Managing the sequencing so that all three could participate in the announcement without breaking embargo required sustained, attentive relationship management across multiple weeks.
We also worked closely with ARENA's communications team to align on the public record and ensure the announcement document was accurate, approved, and ready for distribution without last-minute surprises.
On the media side, Third Hemisphere secured an exclusive for Peter Kerr at the Australian Financial Review, negotiating the embargo timing and interview logistics while keeping The Australian in play for simultaneous coverage. Landing both major national business mastheads on the same announcement, with exclusive content driving the AFR coverage and strong independent reporting in The Australian, is a result that reflects both the strength of the story and the discipline of the media strategy.
This is what strategic media relations for climate tech companies looks like. It is not a matter of sending a media release and hoping. It is deliberate, structured, relationship-driven, and executed to a timeline that accounts for the complexity of government, corporate, and media stakeholders operating simultaneously.
Why Third Hemisphere Backs Companies Like Sicona
Third Hemisphere is a specialist technology and innovation PR and media relations agency. We work with pre-IPO companies, deep tech founders, ASX-listed innovators, and growth-stage businesses that are doing something genuinely important and need a PR partner that understands both the story and the sector. You can see who we work with and explore our case studies to understand the kinds of outcomes we deliver.
But our relationship with companies like Sicona goes beyond retained communications work.
Through our involvement with the SDGX Climate Tech Fund, Third Hemisphere has a stake in the ecosystem we serve. SDGX is a climate technology investment fund, and Sicona was one of its earliest bets. That investment is now tracking at approximately five times its entry value. For a fund built around the thesis that Australian and Asia-Pacific deep tech can generate outsized returns in clean energy, battery technology, and sustainable manufacturing, Sicona is not just a strong performer. It is a proof point for the entire strategy.
This is what we mean when we say we invest in companies like this. Not every client relationship involves a financial position. But it reflects a genuine orientation: Third Hemisphere is not a mercenary PR operation that takes any brief and deploys generic tactics. We are a team of people who believe deeply in the companies we represent, who understand the sectors they operate in, and who bring that conviction to every media relationship, every pitch, and every announcement.
When a journalist asks us why Sicona matters, we do not read from a briefing document. We tell them what we actually think, which is that silicon-carbon anode technology represents a meaningful step forward in the commercialisation of high-performance batteries, that Australia has a genuine opportunity to own a position in the global battery supply chain rather than simply mining the inputs for others to process, and that Christiaan Jordaan and his team have built something technically credible, commercially rigorous, and genuinely worth backing.
That authenticity, when it comes through in media engagements, is not something you can manufacture.
What Climate Tech Companies Need From a PR Agency
Australia's clean energy and climate technology sector has never been more active. The federal government's Battery Breakthrough Initiative, the National Reconstruction Fund, and a series of significant ARENA investments are creating real capital flows into deep tech manufacturing and sovereign capability. That activity generates media interest. But media interest and media coverage are not the same thing.
Climate tech companies seeking to maximise their communications impact need a PR partner with several specific capabilities.
They need sector fluency. A media relations agency that does not understand battery chemistry, ARENA grant structures, critical minerals policy, or the distinction between technology development stage and commercial readiness will not be able to place stories with the journalists who cover these beats credibly.
Tier one reporters at the AFR, The Australian, and major technology publications do not respond well to generic pitches from generalist agencies. They respond to agencies that understand the space and bring them stories that are genuinely newsworthy. Our work with deep tech companies such as HB11 Energy and Cicada Innovations has given us deep fluency in exactly these conversations.
They need government relations capability. For companies receiving public funding, partnering with government agencies, or operating in regulated environments, the ability to coordinate communications across ministerial offices, funding bodies, and policy stakeholders is not optional. It is central to execution.
They need long-term thinking. A single announcement is a moment. A media strategy is a campaign. Third Hemisphere's approach to Sicona is built around a sustained media programme that will support the company's Series B capital raise, its international expansion, its ongoing customer qualification work, and its broader ambition to become a globally recognised name in advanced battery materials.
They need a partner who will still be engaged when the story is difficult, not just when it is easy.
The Bigger Picture: Australian Manufacturing and the Global Battery Supply Chain
The Sicona ARENA grant is not just a company milestone. It is a data point in a larger story about what Australia is capable of building.
For decades, the country's position in the global minerals economy has been defined by extraction. We dig things out of the ground and send them elsewhere to be processed, manufactured, and sold back to us at a significant markup. The battery supply chain is the most vivid contemporary example of that dynamic: Australia holds some of the world's largest lithium reserves, yet the batteries that power Australian electric vehicles are almost entirely manufactured overseas.
Companies like Sicona represent a genuine attempt to change that equation. They are using Australian research, Australian capital, and now Australian government support to manufacture advanced materials in Australia, create skilled jobs in regional manufacturing communities like Wollongong, and compete in the highest-value segments of the global battery supply chain.
That is the kind of company Third Hemisphere exists to support. And on the day the AFR ran that exclusive, with the ministers' statements on record and the story placed exactly where it needed to be, we felt genuinely proud of what the team had built, both at Sicona and at Third Hemisphere.
Working With Third Hemisphere
Third Hemisphere is a specialist PR and media relations agency for technology, innovation, and finance companies in Australia. Our work spans media strategy, announcement campaigns, thought leadership, editorial development, and global digital media.
If you are a climate tech, deep tech, clean energy, or advanced manufacturing company seeking a PR and media relations partner that understands your sector and brings genuine conviction to your story, we would welcome a conversation.