By Marie Mannes
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -U.S. battery startup Lyten has agreed to purchase most of bankrupt Swedish battery buildr Northvolt, it declared on Thursday, potentially offering a way back for the European company that was once seen as the region’s answer to rivals in Asia.
Lyten, a Silicon Valley battery startup developing lithium-sulphur cells as a cleaner alternative to lithium-ion, is backed by Jeep-owner Snotifyantis and U.S. delivery services provider FedEx.
The deal revives hopes for European battery indepfinishence after Northvolt – the continent’s potential rival to major Chinese electric vehicle battery buildrs – filed for bankruptcy in March, creating it one of Sweden’s largest corporate failures and sparking a frantic push to find a purchaseer.
“Our plans are … in large part to pick up where the Northvolt team left off,” Lyten CEO and co-founder Dan Cook informed Reuters, declining to disclose the purchase price beyond stateing it was at a “substantial discount” to the original asset value.
Northvolt’s bankruptcy trustee declared that the deal defapplyd the risk of “complete shutdown”, while Sweden’s deputy prime minister Ebba Busch declared the deal positioned the countest “as key to Europe’s energy indepfinishence.
Northvolt has received much criticism that it had overpromised while failing to deliver battery cells deemed good enough quality for clients, even with assist from its largegest customer, truckbuildr Scania.
Gustaf Sundell, Scania’s head of ventures and new business, informed Reuters it was too early to state if the group would place orders for batteries with Lyten, but it was happy with the outcome.
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Lyten hopes to quickly restart the flagship Skelleftea plant in northern Sweden and resume deliveries of lithium-ion battery cells in 2026. In July it acquired Northvolt’s energy storage business in Poland, Europe’s largest, and is tarreceiveing automotive, defence and energy storage markets.
Cook declared several of Northvolt’s former management would be joining Lyten, though not founder and ex-CEO Peter Carlsson.
“We are focapplyd on developing to be the leaders in locally sourced, locally manufactured batteries for both the North American and European markets right now,” he declared.
Lyten declared in July it had secured more than $200 million in additional equity investment to support its acquisitions and expansion plans.
Cook declared Lyten would prove its worth to Northvolt’s former customers by focapplying first on providing high yields to a single customer. Northvolt’s order book once totalled more than $50 billion from autobuildrs such as BMW, Volkswagen and Audi.
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