Nyobolt secures supply of tungsten and adds some serious juice with £50 million raise

Cambridge-based end-to-end fast-battery charging systems maker Nyobolt has raised £50 million in a new funding round. The boost in capital will now see the company surge ahead, commencing with the production phase. Since late 2020 the startup has banked $83.4 million.

Electric powered everything, great, we’re nearly there (we’ll save the aeroplanes for a later conversation), but beyond the well, earlier versions that can, and have, exploded and remained burning for days, there’s that other problem of the length of time to charge. 

This is where Nyobolt’s founders Professor Clare Grey DBE, FRS, and CEO Dr. Sai Shivareddy stepped in to see if a better mousetrap couldn’t be built.

According to the company, its technology reduces charge times that traditionally took hours, down to minutes.

A key component to the all things chemical wizardry happening in the Nyobolt laboratories is that of tungsten (a.k.a. wolfram). And wouldn’t you just know it - of the £50 million investment, £45 million arrives via H.C. Starck Tungsten Powders (“HCS”), a subsidiary of Masan High-Tech Materials, one of the world’s largest tungsten suppliers. In a statement issued by H.C. Starck, the £45 million constitutes 15% equity interest in Nyobolt on a fully diluted basis.

Sadly, as hard as I looked, I could find no Anthony or Tony anywhere at the executive levels in H.C. Starck.

However, commenting on the investment, H.C. Starck Tungsten CEO, Dr. Hady Seyeda commented, “This investment marks a milestone in our strategy to move further downstream, and get closer to consumers by developing new, innovative applications including our recently trademarked “starck2charge” battery materials product range.”

Stark2charge. That's Ironman enough for me.

In addition to H.C. Starck Tungsten Powders’ lead in the investment round, it should go without saying that the Tungsten division will be supplying Nybolt with presumably heaps of the crucial element.

Alongside not Tony Stark’s lead, Nybolt also saw continued investment from existing deeptech investor IQ Capital.

“The funding from H.C. Starck will help Nyobolt to scale up our operations in the UK and United States and bring a more sustainable solution into the energy storage industry. Nyobolt technology will not only enable net zero both in the electrification of transport, but also the storing of clean and renewable energy on and off the grid,” concluded Nyobolt co-founder Prof. Clare Grey.