The US battery company Lyten has agreed to buy the bankrupt Swedish start-up Northvolt from its administrator, promising to restart production at the company’s sites in Sweden and Germany.
The US battery company Lyten has agreed to buy the bankrupt Swedish start-up Northvolt from its administrator, promising to restart production at the company’s sites in Sweden and Germany.
The US battery company Lyten has agreed to buy the bankrupt Swedish start-up Northvolt from its administrator, promising to restart production at the company’s sites in Sweden and Germany.
In a press release issued on Thursday, the US company said it was buying Northvolt Ett and Ett Expansion in Skellefteå, Northvolt Labs in Västerås, and Northvolt Drei in Heide, Germany. The company is also buying all remaining Northvolt intellectual property (IP), and taking on key members of the current Northvolt executive team.
“This is a defining moment for Lyten,” Dan Cook, the company’s CEO and Co-Founder, said. “Lyten’s mission is to be the leading supplier of clean, locally sourced and manufactured batteries and energy storage systems in both North America and Europe. The acquisition of Northvolt’s assets brings the facilities and Swedish talent to accelerate this mission by years, just at the moment when demand for Lyten lithium-sulfur batteries is growing exponentially to meet energy independence, national security, and AI data center needs.”
The US company did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but said that the assets it had acquired had previously been valued at $5B, and included 16 GWh of battery manufacturing capacity, more than15 GWh of capacity under construction, and in Västerås, the largest and most advanced battery R&D center in Europe.
Lyten said it planned to rehire much of the workforce that had previously been laid-off.
“Lyten’s acquisition of the Northvolt assets is a win for Sweden, for the former employees of Northvolt, and for positioning Sweden as key to Europe’s energy independence,” Sweden’s business minister Ebba Busch said in the press release. “We have been working closely with the trustee and Lyten to fully support this deal and we are excited to work with Lyten moving forward to make good on the immense potential of these assets.”
Lyten is funding the purchase through money raised from private investors, with the various transactions dependent on approvals from the Swedish, German and European governments. Lyten expects the deal to close in the final three months of this year.
“The demand for European and North American made batteries is only growing,” said Lars Herlitz, Lyten’s Chairman and Co-Founder. “The combination of Northvolt’s world-class manufacturing assets and low-cost clean energy, Lyten’s world leading lithium-sulfur battery technology, and Lyten’s US battery materials supply chain creates the right formula to fulfill Europe and North America’s battery manufacturing ambitions.”
Lyten currently manufactures lithium-sulfur batteries in Silicon Valley and is selling commercially into the rapidly growing drone and defense markets. Lyten is also preparing to launch its lithium-sulfur batteries onto the International Space Station in the coming months and has a multi-billion-dollar pipeline for BESS powered by lithium-sulphur.
The company will hold a press conference in Skellefteå at 1030am on Friday, Swedish time.