Northvolt raises $3.6 billion to lift production of “greenest” battery

Swedish battery maker Northvolt has raised $US2.75 billion ($A3.55 billion) from investors, including Goldman Sachs and Volkswagen, to supercharge the company’s battery production.

Northvolt, founded in 2016, has quickly become one of the battery world’s darling companies, thanks in large part to the involvement of VW, which acquired a 20% stake in the company back in 2019, and it is building two massive lithium-ion battery gigafactories in Sweden and Germany.

A year ago, Northvolt announced that it had raised $US1.6 billion to support the development of its two gigafactories – Northvolt Ett which is expected to enter operations this year and was designed to have an annual production output of 40GWh, and Northvolt Zwei, which is expected to enter operations in 2024 with an annual production output of over 20GWh.

Northvolt’s plans have been supercharged, however, with the company announcing its latest raising, taking total funds raised to more than $6.5 billion in equity and debt, all of which will be focused on the company’s plan of building annual production capacity of over 150GWh in Europe by 2030.

“We have been producing cells at our cell industrialization facility, Northvolt Labs, for more than a year and are excited to now bring the knowledge and technology we have developed to the north and start large-scale production,” said Peter Carlsson, co-founder and CEO of Northvolt.

“We have a solid base of world-class investors and customers on-board who share Northvolt’s mission of building the world’s greenest battery to enable the European transition to renewable energy.”

Northvolt currently expects to build a further two European gigafactories this decade so as to meet its 2030 capacity target of 150GWh+, and is already looking at building the next of these gigafactories in Germany.

Similarly, Northvolt also expects to see a significant growth in other parts of the European value chain for battery manufacturing – from processing of raw materials to component and equipment manufacturing, to production of battery cells and systems and the build-up of recycling infrastructure.

“This is a new European industry in the making and it will require significant investments over the coming decade,” said Alexander Hartman, CFO of Northvolt.

“It is encouraging to see that the investor community has identified the opportunity early, and we hope to see more investments throughout the value chain over the coming years.”