French lithium battery manufacturer VoltR has secured €22 million to industrialise its battery remanufacturing model and expand production in Europe.
The financing combines a €16 million equity investment from the SPI 2 Fund, managed by Bpifrance on behalf of the French government as part of the France 2030 initiative, and Decathlon PULSE, with €6 million in grants through the Première Usine programme.
From Used Cells to New Batteries
Co-founded by Alban Regnier, François Mallet, Maxime Bleskine and Thibaud Maufront, VoltR remanufactures lithium batteries by recovering cells at the end of their first life and repurposing suitable cells into new batteries. Its products are used across markets including power tools, micromobility, home automation, smart cities and mobile storage.
The company says it has validated its model by placing more than 20,000 remanufactured batteries on the market.
The new financing will support the expansion of VoltR’s manufacturing facilities, automation of its production processes, further development of its cell diagnostic and repurposing technologies, and construction of an ICPE-certified storage facility.
“For the past four years, we have been working to demonstrate a fairly simple idea: a lithium cell that has reached the end of its first life cycle has not necessarily reached the end of its industrial life. We have validated the proof of concept with more than 20,000 batteries placed on the market, and this funding round now gives us the means to demonstrate this on a large scale.
Within two years, we aim to increase our production capacity sixfold and double our workforce, creating about 40 jobs. The arrival of Bpifrance’s SPI Fund and Decathlon PULSE as partners is particularly significant: it brings together, around VoltR, expertise in industrialization and very practical knowledge of applications and markets. Our course has remained the same since the beginning: to make remanufacturing a key player in the European battery value chain to strengthen its sovereignty and reduce its environmental impact,” said Maxime Bleskine, CEO of VoltR.
Scaling Production in Europe
VoltR plans to double the size of its factory in Verrières-en-Anjou, France, and increase its production capacity sixfold over the next two years. The expansion is intended to allow the company to process larger volumes of batteries reaching the end of their first life and extend its technology to new products and markets.
The company’s model adds a remanufacturing stage before recycling. Rather than immediately recycling batteries at the end of their initial use, VoltR assesses whether individual lithium cells can be reused in new batteries before the materials are ultimately sent for recycling.
VoltR said the industrial expansion is part of its broader goal to develop a European circular supply chain covering battery collection, storage, diagnostics, remanufacturing, production and eventual materials recycling.