Northvolt AB

Northvolt AB

Northvolt was founded in 2016 by Peter Carlsson and Paolo Cerruti, both former Tesla executives. Carlsson had served as Tesla's vice president of supply chain; Cerruti was a director at Tesla. The company was created to address Europe's reliance on Asian battery producers, with early backing from investors including Goldman Sachs, Volkswagen Group, and Spotify founder Daniel Ek. Its headquarters is in Stockholm, Sweden. Northvolt focuses on lithium-ion battery cell production for electric vehicles and energy storage systems. Its manufacturing facilities include Northvolt Ett in Skellefteå, Sweden, which began production in 2022, and Northvolt Drei in Heide, Germany, announced in 2022. The company also operates a research and development campus in Västerås, Sweden. Confirmed customers include BMW, Volkswagen, Scania, and Volvo Cars. In 2023, Northvolt formed a joint venture with Volvo Cars, called Novo Energy, to build a battery factory in Gothenburg, Sweden (per Volvo Cars, 2023). Geographic footprint includes offices in Stockholm, Munich, Delft, and Kitakyushu. As of 2024, Northvolt had raised over $13 billion in equity and debt, including a $1.1 billion convertible note facility in 2023 and a $5.2 billion green loan facility in 2020 (per the firm's official communications). The company has scaled to over 5,000 employees across multiple sites. In March 2024, Northvolt announced an expansion of its Northvolt Ett facility to add 160 GWh of additional capacity (public record, March 2024). Adjacent structures include the Revolt recycling plant, which recovers battery materials. Northvolt's structural differentiator is its vertically integrated approach: it controls everything from raw-material sourcing (via joint ventures with mines and recyclers) to cell production and recycling. The company also develops its own lithium-metal battery technology through a partnership with Cuberg, a startup it acquired in 2021. This breadth distinguishes it from pure-play cell manufacturers.