Deeptech/News/ Spotify founder backs gigafactory as first deeptech investment Northvolt is Daniel Ek’s first investment since the €1bn announcement By Mimi Billing 29 September 2020 Daniel Ek invests in the gigafactory Northvolt. Daniel Ek invests in the gigafactory Northvolt. \Deeptech Can an Estonian startup solve the construction worker shortage? By Kit Gillet 17 May 2022 Deeptech/News/ Spotify founder backs gigafactory as first deeptech investment Northvolt is Daniel Ek’s first investment since the €1bn announcement By Mimi Billing 29 September 2020 Late last week, the founder of Spotify Daniel Ek announced that he was committing €1bn, one third of his wealth, to investing in European moonshots. Today it was announced that first moonshot to get part of his money is the Swedish battery gigafactory Northvolt. Northvolt said it had $600m in a new finance round backed by institutional investors Baillie Gifford, Baron Capital Group, Bridford Investments Limited, Norrsken VC and PCS Holding. Private investors Cristina Stenbeck and Daniel Ek also participate in the raise together with existing Northvolt shareholders. Peter Carlsson, co-founder and CEO of Northvolt, commented: “We are in the middle of a race to establish manufacturing capacity in Europe, and I believe the companies that are best at attracting talent and capital, while scaling their blueprints the fastest, will be the most successful. With these world-class partners behind us, we have created a solid foundation to go on and execute our plans to enable large-scale manufacturing of green batteries in Europe.” For Ek, who just last Thursday said he would invest in deeptech startups in the field of biotech, machine learning and energy, Northvolt is a good fit. He is joined by billionaire and previous Kinnevik chair Cristina Stenbeck, who is also on the board of Spotify. Public-private partnerships During Ek’s announcement last week, he said that he wanted to push for more public-private partnerships. “I will do so by funding so-called moonshots focusing on the deep technology necessary to make a significant positive dent, and work with scientists, entrepreneurs, investors and governments to do so,” he said last week. Northvolt has so far got millions of grants and loans from both Sweden and EU and also raised €1bn back in June 2019. The company will use the additional half a billion euros to establishing a giga-scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility next to the Northvolt gigafactory. The facility will become the largest in the world with an initial capacity of 4 GWh, and the only large-scale facility in Europe capable of recycling lithium in addition to cobalt, nickel, manganese and other metals, according to the company. The environmental protection agency in Sweden (Naturvårdsverket) decided in March to support Northvolt with €15m in the development of recycling cobalt, nickel och lithium from electric car batteries. “We are in the process of getting a few patents on the process. Instead of melting the batteries, whereby only the cobalt and nickel is recycled, we are developing a new way of dissolving the raw material. In that way, we can also recycle lithium. I believe that we are the first in Europe to do this”, Carlsson told Sifted in August this year. Northvolt is by no means Ek’s first large investment. He has previously invested €16m in the telemedicine startup Kry as well as smaller investments in the healthtech startup HJN Sverige and the British online housing marketplace, Student.com. Mimi Billing is Sifted’s Nordic correspondent. She also covers healthtech, and tweets from @MimiBilling Related Articles Europe is making faster cars and better batteries than Tesla By Marie Mawad, Mimi Billing and Maija Palmer Click here to read more Daniel Ek commits to investing €1bn in European ”moonshots” By Mimi Billing Click here to read more Eight-time founder: “Don’t do what I did” By Mimi Billing Click here to read more Most Read 1 \Venture Capital What’s going on with European startup valuations? 2 \Fintech Klarna lays off 10% of its team amid valuation crunch 3 \Venture Capital Meet the 17 European startups selected by Sequoia’s accelerator 4 Member \Sustainability Ranked: Europe’s top climate tech investors 5 \Startup Life The metaverse sucks — IRL meetings are the way to go for growth 3 Join the conversation Subscribe newest oldest Notify of new follow-up comments new replies to my comments Thorsten DueserIs a Northvolt investment really a moonshot? Giga battery factory projects are aplenty, Northvolt already received plenty of funding. I wonder what Ek`s definition of a moonshot investment is. Mimi BillingMany would have called Elon Musk’s SpaceX a moonshot project a few years ago, even it already had funding. Isn’t moonshots when one is trying to do something extraordinary that will have a huge impact if successful? Europe actually doesn’t have any battery gigafactories and especially not any that are trying to recycle all the metals in the batteries as well. Ricardo MoreauDitto on the lithium recycling from older battery packs.
Europe is making faster cars and better batteries than Tesla By Marie Mawad, Mimi Billing and Maija Palmer Click here to read more