Redwood Supplies, the battery recycling startup based by Tesla co-founder and present board member JB Straubel, has raised greater than $1 billion in Collection D shares from its most up-to-date fairness funding spherical.

The spherical was co-led by Goldman Sachs Asset Administration, Capricorn’s Expertise Affect Fund, in addition to funds and accounts suggested by T. Rowe Value Associates. New traders, together with OMERS, Caterpillar Enterprise Capital, Microsoft’s Local weather Innovation Fund, and Deepwater Asset Administration, additionally participated within the spherical.

Redwood Supplies mentioned it’ll use the funds, that are along with the almost $1 billion of beforehand raised fairness capital and a $2 billion mortgage dedication from the Division of Vitality, to proceed constructing its capability, increasing the home battery provide chain, and permit its prospects to buy battery supplies – like lithium, nickel and cobalt – made within the US for the primary time. 

Most battery supplies are sourced or produced in China, which processes and refines 59 % and 75 % of the world’s lithium and cobalt, respectively. As compared, the US and Canada mixed course of and refine simply 3 % of the world’s lithium and three.5 % of the world’s cobalt, in accordance with knowledge from Benchmark Minerals cited by TechCrunch.

To assist cut back the hole and create a closed-loop provide chain within the US, Redwood has two factories beneath building within the US. There is a 175-acre recycling facility in Carson Metropolis, Nevada, which is able to produce anode copper foil, and a 600-acre facility in Charleston, South Carolina that may enable Redwood to transcend recycling batteries and refining supplies into remanufacturing of each the cathode and anode copper foil. 

Redwood Supplies Battery Supplies Campus in Charleston, South Carolina

Presently, the US exports a number of hundred thousand tons of copper a yr to Asia, which isn’t serving to the surroundings and results in crucial copper provides leaving the nation.

The most recent spherical of capital will assist Redwood get its copper foil manufacturing in place by the tip of 2023, with Panasonic set to be its first foil buyer as a part of an current partnership – Redwood began recycling Panasonic’s manufacturing scrap from Tesla’s Giga Nevada plant in 2019.

“We’re relentlessly targeted on increasing our assortment of end-of-life batteries, growing our refining functionality to get well greater portions, and harnessing their worth to take advantage of sustainable merchandise. This method stands because the cornerstone of our technique as we scale our battery materials manufacturing capability.”

Excerpt from Redwood Supplies’ press launch

The corporate additionally mentioned the extra capital will enable it to proceed to assemble an industry-leading staff to make sure “top-notch execution in sustainable battery supplies manufacturing.”

Redwood Supplies expects to succeed in round 100 gigawatt-hours annual capability of cathode energetic supplies and anode foil by 2025 – sufficient to energy 1 million EVs. By 2030, it hopes to scale manufacturing output to 500 GWh per yr, which might energy 5 million EVs. 

JB Straubel, founding father of Redwood Supplies