Redwood Materials Raises $350M to Scale U.S. Battery Operations

Redwood Materials, founded by ex‑Tesla CTO JB Straubel, raised $350 million in a Series E led by Eclipse Ventures with participation from NVIDIA’s NVentures to accelerate grid‑scale energy storage and critical materials operations. The oversubscribed round values the company at over $6 billion and brings total capital raised to roughly $2.2 billion. Redwood will use the proceeds to scale U.S.‑made battery storage systems (Redwood Energy), expand refining and cathode production capacity, and add engineering and operations staff to meet rising demand from AI data centers and the clean‑energy sector. The firm repurposes new and second‑life EV batteries into fast, low‑cost storage and supplies domestically recovered lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper. Executives say battery collection and refining are driven by market economics rather than direct federal incentives like the IRA, and the company has partnerships including a non‑binding MOU with GM.