Redwood Materials, a battery recycling start-up established by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, is in advanced discussions to secure $700 million in funding. This would value the company at almost $5 billion and support the development of its inaugural large-scale facility in Nevada.
Founded in 2017, Redwood Materials seeks to revolutionize the supply chain for electric vehicles (EVs) by recycling the components of batteries and curbing the need for additional mineral mining. The start-up has attracted significant investment from asset managers such as T Rowe Price, Baillie Gifford, and Fidelity, who are anticipated to participate in the latest funding round, reports the Financial Times.
Following its $700 million funding round in 2021, which valued the firm at $3.7 billion, Redwood was conditionally pledged a $2 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy this year. Like the loan, the latest fundraising venture will contribute to the establishment of a battery recycling facility near Reno, Nevada. This facility is designed to transform end-of-life batteries and production waste into critical materials for EVs.
The proposed plant, when at full capacity, is projected to generate enough materials to support the manufacturing of over a million EVs per year. This comes as the U.S. EV market is expanding, and President Joe Biden seeks to hasten the nation’s shift towards renewable energy.
Though the fundraising deal has yet to be finalized, people familiar with the situation suggest the discussions are well underway. With electric cars gaining in popularity, battery recycling is key for reclaiming minerals to be reused once again.
A lot of people still don’t understand the value of this closed loop system but they will. By the time EVs have replaced all ICEs on the roads today and considering the extended lifetimes that EVs will enjoy, that should be about the start of the end in the mining phase of our activity on this planet. Also by this time, there will be enough battery storage to handle all the solar and wind power we can generate and electricity will be basically free, especially at certain times of the day. This drop in energy costs will remove the biggest obstacle to recycling all other “waste” products too like plastics etc. as this is main reason it isn’t done today (very much). Batteries, especially in the numbers that we will eventually need, seem so impossible but they’re really not, thanks to companies like Tesla and Redwood Materials that see into the future and set plans in motion to be there ready to deal with it. Bravo! RIP FFs.