Tesla co-founder and board member JB Straubel began the electrical car battery recycling firm Redwood Supplies in 2017. Now, because the EV business continues to develop, the recycling firm has raised over $1 billion in a brand new funding spherical, formally pushing Redwood previous a $5 billion valuation.
Above: Tesla automobiles charging (Picture: Casey Murphy / EVANNEX).
Straubel’s Redwood Supplies raised over $1 billion in a latest funding spherical, as reported this week by Forbes. The corporate performs large-scale recycling for lithium supplies, then turning that materials into anode and cathode supplies to be reused in EV batteries. The information comes after Redwood raised roughly $2 billion since 2019, and after it grew to become eligible for a $2 billion low-interest federal mortgage. Collectively, this funding places the valuation of the battery recycling firm above $5 billion.
“There’s lots of capital and lots of initiatives introduced and underneath development in (battery) cell manufacturing—over 800 gigawatt-hours per 12 months in simply the U.S. earlier than the top of this decade,” Straubel mentioned earlier this 12 months in an interview with Forbes.
A part of Redwood’s objective as an organization is to assist deliver EV battery manufacturing to the U.S., whereas reusing essential supplies similar to lithium, graphite, copper, cobalt and different mined supplies. At the moment, these supplies are largely produced in China, South Korea and Japan.
Above: FIRST SHIFT – 08/30/2023: Funds for Redwood Supplies’ U.S. enlargement (Video: Automotive Information through YouTube)
The Collection D funding Spherical was co-led partly by the corporations Goldman Sachs, Capricorn and T. Rowe Worth, although funding additionally got here from new traders together with the Ontario Municipal Workers Retirement System (OMERS) and the Microsoft Local weather Innovation Fund. Because the EV business continues to develop, there will probably be an rising want for reusing supplies and bolstering the U.S. provide chain, which Straubel says presently has a significant hole.
“Enterprise-strategy-wise, there’s a niche and an issue within the provide chain,” Straubel added. “It will not be the sexiest a part of the entire (EV) realm to put money into however I believe it is pressing and should develop into extra of a bottleneck. So we’re very targeted there.”
Redwood Supplies has a manufacturing facility close to Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada in Sparks, Nevada. At the moment, it produces a copper foil that it shares with fellow Tesla companion Panasonic. Moreover, Redwood is trying to construct a $3.5 billion facility exterior of Charleston, South Carolina, which is predicted to make use of recycled supplies to provide anode and cathode supplies to the Southeast area of the U.S.
Previous to beginning Redwood, Straubel served because the Chief Technical Officer at Tesla and was one of many automaker’s unique founders. He was additionally elected to Tesla’s Board of Administrators in a shareholder’s assembly in Might.
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Sources: Forbes / Automotive Information (through YouTube)