Westborough firm raises more than $1B in financing and grants to build Kentucky factory
Photo | Courtesy Ascend Elements
Ascend Elements is building a one-million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
Ascend Elements, a Westborough-based manufacturer of battery materials, raised more than $1 billion in financing and grants in the past year to build a one-million square-foot factory in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
Of the funding, $542 million comes from equity investments. Ascend Elements’ Series D round of funding was led by Singapore-based, government-owned investment firm Temasek, Decarbonization Partners, a joint venture between asset-management giant BlackRock and Temasek, and Qatar Investment Authority.
The U.S. Department of Energy granted Ascend Elements two grants worth $480 million as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in October 2022.
"I'd like to thank our new and existing partners for helping us deliver on our vision of producing sustainable, engineered battery materials at a commercial scale. Our sustainable lithium-ion battery materials will power EV batteries and accelerate the global transition to zero carbon emissions," Mike O'Kronley, CEO of Ascend Elements, said in a Wednesday press release. "Together, we are investing in North America's critical EV battery infrastructure and bringing good manufacturing jobs back to the United States."
Ascend Elements began construction in 2022 on North America's first sustainable cathode precursor (pCAM) and cathode active material (CAM) manufacturing facility, called Apex 1, on a 140-acre site in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. When complete, the facility will produce enough sustainable pCAM for 750,000 electric vehicles per year, according to the press release.
In June 2023, Ascend Elements signed a $1 billion contract to supply sustainable pCAM starting in Q4 2024 with options to expand the multi-year contract to a larger quantity with a value of up to $5 billion.
The company, which recycles elements of lithium ion batteries, won a WBJ Manufacturing Excellence Award in 2022, and WPI Professor Yan Wang, the company’s co-founder, won a Manufacturing Excellence Award in 2023.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments