Texas energy giant Phillips 66 has paid US$150 million, or about C$188 million, for a 16 percent stake in Novonix Ltd., an Australian maker of materials for lithium-ion batteries that owns Novonix Battery Testing Solutions -- a startup spun off from research at Dalhousie University in 2017.

Brisbane-based Novonix Ltd. bought the company now called Novonix BTS in 2017, with Chinese battery company CATL also signing on as an investor. Novonix BTS continues to be based in Bedford.

The Bedford company sprung from the lab of Jeff Dahn, and drew national attention in the summer of 2015 when it signed a five-year research partnership with Tesla, marking the first collaboration between the American automaker and a Canadian university.

Novonix BTS Co-Founders Chris Burns and David Stevens, both PhDs who worked under Dahn, founded Novonix BTS to develop a product that could reduce the time needed to test the life of large lithium-ion batteries, like the ones used in Teslas. 

Dahn, meanwhile, continues to collaborate with Tesla on research and development projects, and in February, it was announced that he would become Novonix Ltd.’s Chief Scientific Advisor.

The Phillips 66 deal values Novonic Ltd. at about US$937 million or C$1.17 billion, but it is unclear how much of that value is derived from the still Bedford-based Novonix BTS. The company's market capitalization is about AUD$1.59 billion or C$1.47 billion.

Novonix Ltd. shares, which trade on the Australian Securities Exchange, rose slightly on the news Tuesday, rising from AUD$3.17 to AUD$3.49.