Battery maker Nyobolt has raised $30m months after warning it could run out of cash if it failed to secure extra funding, as the sector creaks in the face of a shifting macroeconomic landscape.
IQ Capital and LocalGlobe’s sister growth fund Latitude led the round for the Cambridge-based startup — which has developed novel fast-charging battery technology for use in warehouse robotics. Strategic investors Scanian Invest and Takasago Industry also participated.
The round takes Nyobolt’s total funding to $100m, with the fresh capital earmarked for research and development and expanded manufacturing capabilities as the company looks to grow commercially.
Europe’s battery startups face an inflection point following the collapse of poster child Northvolt, which shook many investors’ confidence in the sector. Funding for battery tech companies has so far hit $158m this year, according to Dealroom, tracking below the $1.2bn raised in 2024.
“Northvolt really affected the appetite of investors to invest in big capital projects — we did find that most investors are waiting out this cycle,” says Sai Shivareddy, founder and CEO at Nyobolt.
“When we started out raising last year, it became clear that big cross-over funds, which would invest at growth stage, weren’t doing many deals in the energy transition sector.”
Commercial traction
Nyobolt has reason to remain optimistic amid the uncertainty. The company says it made $9m in revenue in 2024, up from just £67k the previous year.
Shivareddy also anticipates another $150m in deal value over the next few years, he tells Sifted — the majority of which he expects to come from a single warehouse robotics customer based in the US.
Those figures paint a different picture than Nyobolt’s most recent company accounts, published in December.
While the company said it still considered itself a going concern — typically meaning it believes it can operate for the next 12 months — Nyobolt also predicted it would run out of cash by the end of Q1 2025 if it didn’t raise more funds.
But Shivareddy says Nyobolt always had at least six months of runway in its coffers, and the statement was only included in the financial report because milestone-based payments weren’t recognised by its auditors.
The company now hopes to double 2024 revenue figures this year as it increases commercial output.
Founded in 2020, Nyobolt has previously touted its credentials as a maker of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). In the summer of 2024, Shivareddy told the BBC that he hoped the startup’s batteries could be in EVs within a year.
But EVs were absent from applications Nyobolt said it signed commercial contracts in, according to last year’s company accounts. Instead, the startup reported signing contracts with customers in the warehouse and humanoid robotics sectors.
“We continue to be focused on EV application but for more medium to long term due to product cycle timelines and time to market,” Shivareddy tells Sifted.
Tariff uncertainty
Nyobolt is operating in an increasingly uncertain market.
Tariffs levied by US president Donald Trump earlier this month saw many European hardware startups scrambling to navigate supply chain uncertainty and rethink expansion plans.
While Trump has backtracked on more severe import taxes for some countries — many hardware-producing companies that sell into the US are still worried by the knock-on impact even partial tariffs could have on material and product costs.
Shivareddy concedes the cost of components for its batteries, some of which come from Asia, could rise, but says that Nyobolt can avoid the worst of the economic fallout because of its supply chain flexibility.
Many of the components for the startup’s tech are made through contracted manufacturing partners across the world, which Shivareddy tells Sifted means the company can shift production if need be.
Costs could rise if Nyobolt is forced to shift manufacturing to be nearer its main customer in the US.
“We’ve always maintained the possibility that we could assemble batteries close to [Nyobolt’s main customer] in the US, except it came at an additional cost,” says Shivareddy. “We’re still waiting to find out what the tariffs are going to settle at.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/battery-startup-nyobolt-raises-30m/
