Redwood attracts Google for its $425M Series E as AI power needs rise | TechCrunch

Google is the latest investor to back Redwood Materials as the battery recycling and cathode production startup scales a new energy storage venture to power AI data centers and other industrial sites.

Redwood Materials, founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, last October raised $350 million in a Series E round led by venture firm Eclipse. The round included a new strategic investment by Nvidia’s venture capital arm, NVentures.

More investors, including newcomer Google, have piled in since, pushing the Series E to $425 million, the company said. Existing investors Capricorn and Goldman Sachs have also returned with fresh investments.

The company’s valuation was not publicly disclosed, but a source familiar with the round told TechCrunch its post-money valuation was north of $6 billion, more than a billion higher than its previous valuation. This latest investment pushes Redwood’s total capital raised to $4.9 billion.

The attraction for Google, Nvidia, and others in this latest round appears to be energy storage — and its ability to power data centers — a newer business venture within Redwood.  

Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 to create a circular supply chain for batteries. It initially focused on recycling scrap from battery production and consumer electronics like cell phone batteries and laptop computers. Redwood processes that scrap and extracts materials that are traditionally mined, like nickel and lithium. The newly processed materials are then sold to customers such as Panasonic, which use them to make batteries.

Redwood has continued to expand its business beyond recycling. The Carson City, Nevada-based company added cathode production several years ago, and last summer, launched an energy-storage business that repurposes EV batteries that aren’t quite ready to be recycled and turns them into micro-grids that can supply power to AI data centers and large-scale industrial sites.

That new business, called Redwood Energy, got its start as the demand for data centers skyrocketed.

“As electricity demand surges — driven by AI, data centers, manufacturing and electrification — energy storage is no longer optional; it is essential infrastructure,” the company said in a blog post announcing the new funding.

And Redwood seems to have the means to power at least some of those data centers. The company said in June it recovers more than 70% of all used or discarded battery packs in North America, many of which can have a second life as energy storage.

Redwood said last year it had more than 1 gigawatt-hour worth in its inventory and expected to receive another 4 gigawatt-hours over the coming months. The company expects to deploy 20 gigawatt-hours of grid-scale storage by 2028.