Battery materials recycling firm Redwood Materials raises $1 billion

US-based battery materials recycling firm, Redwood Materials on Tuesday announced it has raised $1 billion in the latest equity funding round.

Founded by former Tesla executive Jeffery B. Straubel in 2017, the firm will utilize the fresh funding for expanding its operation in the United States.

"We will use our Series D funding to continue building our capacity, expanding the domestic battery supply chain and allowing our customers to purchase battery materials made in the US," Redwood said in an official statement.

Earlier this year, Redwood Materials received a conditional commitment for a $2 billion loan from the US Department of Energy's Loan Program Office for the construction and expansion of a battery materials campus in McCarran, Nevada that will support the growing electric vehicle (EV) market in America.

To date, almost all anode and cathode active materials supporting the US cell manufacturers production came from Asia. On completion of the project, it could be one of the first domestic facility to support production of anode copper foil and cathode active materials at scale in a fully closed-loop lithium-ion battery manufacturing process by recycling end-of-life battery and production scrap and remanufacturing that feedstock into critical materials.

Redwood Materials currently has partnerships with several existing EV battery manufacturers in the US including Panasonic Energy of North America. Other partnerships include key US-based and global automakers, domestic suppliers of end-of-life batteries and electronic waste, and others.

According to reports, the share of annual battery-powered electric vehicles is expected to rise from about 2% in 2020 to 35% by 2030 in the United States.