French battery startup Verkor has secured €1.3bn in loans to finance its gigafactory plant in northern France, bringing its total financing to more than €3bn. The Verkor site is one of five gigafactories set to be built in France, part of Europe’s push to secure its electric vehicle supply chain.
The new loan comes from the sixteen commercial banks and three public banks, including the European Investment Bank, Bpifrance, ING BANK NV and Banco Santander.
Verkor, which launched in 2020, is building its first gigafactory, in Dunkirk, which will cost €1.5bn. Gigafactories are large-scale facilities manufacturing the batteries needed to power the green transition.
Production is set to start in 2025, at which point the company says it will be manufacturing enough batteries to power 200k cars each year.
Gigafactories are capital intensive and companies building them are increasingly turning to non-dilutive fundraising to finance them. Swedish gigafactory startup Northvolt, Europe’s best-capitalised gigafactory company, secured $5bn in debt in January this year.
Verkor previously closed a €850m Series C round in September last year, alongside €1.2bn of non-equity funding. Macquarie led the Series C. Other investors included Meridiam, Renault Group, EQT Ventures, EIT InnoEnergy and Sibanye-Stillwater.
Other gigafactory projects in France, include ACC, a venture equally owned by TotalEnergies, Citroën maker Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/verkor-france-gigafactory-loan-news/
