Verkor raises €100M to develop battery cells in France

Besides EQT Ventures and Renault Group, the round saw participation from the French Government and AuvergneRhône-Alpes Region, the funding will support the company’s expansion, and trigger the construction of the Verkor Innovation Centre (VIC) where the advanced battery cells and modules will be designed. Also participating in the round were EIT InnoEnergy, Groupe IDEC, Schneider Electric, Capgemini, Arkema, Tokai COBEX and the Fund for Ecologic Modernisation of Transport (FMET) managed by Demeter. All 10 partners are united by the same vision: to build a competitive, sustainable, and local battery cell value chain in Europe. Verkor says will deliver on this with a battery cell manufacturing capacity of 16 GWh in 2024, scaling to +50 GWh by 2030, a press release reads. The VIC, which will be located in Grenoble and operational in 2022, is a major milestone in achieving this vision. It will accommodate a pilot line for battery cell manufacturing, an R&D centre, testing facilities, module prototyping, and provide training for a new generation of engineers and technicians. “We are honoured to have shareholders of such a high quality on board with us. I want to thank our team for what we have achieved together in less than a year of existence. Our new shareholding structure totally reflects our ambition: an end-to-end approach to battery manufacturing, each of us focusing on what we do best, while cross-fertilising our expertise,” says Verkor’s CEO Benoit Lemaignan in the press release.