Breathing new life into spent Tesla EV batteries, Cactos raises €2.5 million to meet growing customer demand

Finnish maker of smart energy storage units, Cactos has raised €2.5 million in a combination of equity and debt funding. With its current production operating at maximum capacity, the capital is slated to help the company more than double its factory size in early 2023, allowing for nearly a 10-fold increase in unit production.

Sourcing its primary material from spent Tesla EV batteries, Cactos uses proprietary technology to restore these power cells to a fully operational and safe condition. Given a new lease on life, these batteries are then converted into 100kWh energy storage units at Cactos’ factory in Muhos, Finland.

While a battery is just a battery, the “other” side of Cactos’ business involves a cloud computing service layered atop the energy storage unit that controls and optimises a growing fleet of power savers. 

In addition to providing clients with a dashboard that can track the system status, consumption, and production data alongside other key metrics, the startups' cloud-based management service, dubbed Cactos Spine, uses AI to provide a consistent energy supply through usage peaks or blackouts, as well as automatically taking advantage of any lower electricity prices. 

Conversely, Cactos units can also feed and provide stability to a power grid by balancing supply and demand. When there is a shortage of electricity, the units can automatically discharge energy into the grid, and if there is excess production, the units absorb energy.

Coming full circle, one use case for Cactos’ offer would be that of EV charging stations and the electricity distribution networks that support them. Fast charging causes significant energy consumption peaks, and the charging stations may need to limit charging power due to limited connection size. The Cactos One unit helps shave the peaks and enables temporary loads larger than the connection size would otherwise allow.

“On the ground, companies are concerned about electricity supply and market volatility. The coming winter will clearly be a very difficult one, but the longer-term outlook with energy transition and temporal imbalance in supply and demand means there is a huge need for demand response and different ways to store energy. To service the market at large, our target was to create an energy storage solution that is carefree for the user and easily accessible. I believe we have succeeded in doing that; the Cactos One requires no upfront investment and operates independently,” explained CEO and founder Oskari Jaakkola.

Cactos’ €2.5 million funding round was led by Superhero Capital and saw the participation of Cactos’ founders as well.