By Nick Carey
LONDON - British fast-charging battery startup Nyobolt said on Friday it has raised 50 million pounds ($59 million) in Series B funding to build a UK manufacturing plant in 2023 to produce millions of battery cells.
The funding round was led by H.C. Starck Tungsten Powders, a unit of Vietnamese mining company Masan High-Tech Materials, one of the world's largest tungsten suppliers. Through a strategic partnership, Goslar, Germany-based H.C. Starck will help Nyobolt scale up manufacturing and its battery recycling program.
Nyobolt has been developing battery anodes using niobium and tungsten that could enable electric vehicles (EVs) to charge in minutes.
Niobium and tungsten are both stable metals often used to strengthen steel or create steel alloys.
Cambridge-based Nyobolt is currently focusing on high-performance racing EVs, but executives say its batteries could be ready for use in mass-market EV models later this decade.
In the race to go electric, carmakers have focused on range to ease consumer anxiety over charging infrastructure, but battery startups are already working on the smaller, longer-lasting and cheaper batteries of the future, which also charge more quickly.
(This story corrects spelling of tungsten in fourth paragraph).
($1 = 0.8416 pounds)
