Layoffs affect a portion of workforce as company expands into new battery reuse markets
Redwood Materials is cutting around 5% of its workforce shortly after raising $350 million, according to Bloomberg News. With roughly 1,200 employees, the reduction affects a few dozen workers.
Founded in 2017 by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, the company began by recycling scrap from battery cell production, consumer electronics, and used electric vehicle batteries. Redwood extracts materials such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium and sells them back to customers including Panasonic. The company has since expanded into cathode production.
New business line leverages used EV batteries for energy storage
Redwood recently launched a business repurposing old EV batteries for energy storage systems, a sector experiencing rapid growth due to demand from power-intensive AI data centers. As of June, the company had accumulated more than 1 gigawatt-hour of batteries designated for that purpose.
The $350 million Series E round, announced in October, increased Redwood’s valuation to about $6 billion. The company declined to comment on the layoffs.
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