Redwood Materials, a U.S. battery recycling and materials manufacturing company founded by former Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel, has raised $350 million in a Series E funding round to accelerate the expansion of its energy storage and critical materials operations, amid rising demand for energy solutions to power AI infrastructure.
The oversubscribed funding round was led by Eclipse Ventures with participation from new strategic investors, including NVentures, Nvidia’s venture capital arm, Redwood said. The company added that the investment reflects strong momentum across its two core business lines — Critical Materials (cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium, and cathode active material) and Grid Energy Storage (large-scale, low-cost, high-integration systems).
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“This is a pivotal time for both Redwood and the United States,” the company said in a statement, highlighting that limited international supplies are colliding with “intense domestic demand growth for these same materials and energy products.” Redwood emphasized that electric energy availability has become a key strategic issue for AI infrastructure growth, with battery energy storage emerging as the most immediate and scalable solution to enable data center deployment and improve grid capacity.
Founded in 2017, Redwood Materials set out to create a circular supply chain for batteries by recycling and refining materials from used electronics and battery scrap. Today, it supplies recovered materials such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium to major manufacturers including Panasonic, General Motors, and Toyota. Beyond recycling, the company has expanded into cathode production and grid-scale energy storage, integrating reused EV batteries with renewable sources like solar and wind to provide off-grid or hybrid power solutions.
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Redwood said it is building a new generation of U.S.-made energy storage systems that are scalable, low-cost, and capable of powering AI data centers, industrial facilities, and the broader electrical grid, reducing reliance on imported lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. “Coupled with natural gas turbines and future nuclear generation, large-scale energy storage can dramatically improve efficiency, utilization, and the reliability of those baseload assets,” the company noted.
With the new funding, Redwood plans to accelerate its energy storage deployments, expand refining and materials production capacity, and grow its engineering and operations teams. The company said it is actively recruiting professionals “who want to shape the next era of American energy leadership and critical-minerals independence.”
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As of June, Redwood had stockpiled more than 1 gigawatt-hour of EV batteries suitable for reuse in grid storage and aims to deploy 20 gigawatt-hours of energy storage by 2028, positioning it to become one of the world’s largest repurposers of EV battery packs.
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