Redwood Supplies has been on an enlargement tear lately — progress that has prolonged the lithium-ion battery recycling and supplies startup’s footprint nicely past its Carson Metropolis, Nevada headquarters because it locked up offers with Toyota, Panasonic, and, GM, began development on a South Carolina manufacturing unit, and made an acquisition in Europe.
And but, Redwood Supplies CTO Colin Campbell noticed a spot within the firm’s 1,100-person workforce. San Francisco was the reply, Campbell instructed TechCrunch, a longtime Tesla veteran who took the highest tech spot in August 2023.
The corporate, which was based by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, is filling that hole with a brand new analysis and growth middle in San Francisco. The 15,000-square-foot facility situated within the metropolis’s Design District is supplied with lab house to assist engineers who will finally work on each level of the battery ecosystem from chemical engineering and cathode science to software program and electrical engineering. That work might assist enhance cathode manufacturing, an vital element of Redwood’s enterprise, which generated $200 million in income in 2024.
The middle, which Redwood moved into a couple of week in the past, solely has a handful of engineers on website. However Campbell expects it is going to finally make use of about 50 or extra folks.
“We had a extremely good 12 months, and we had nice income,” Campbell stated, including that the corporate has been restricted by its capability to broaden. “And what’s limiting our capability to broaden the engineering staff is hiring. We simply have to broaden the aperture of the place we are able to rent from. And San Francisco was type of to a logical place for a bunch of various causes.”
Excessive on the listing is deep expertise pool of {hardware} and software program engineers who’re within the Bay Space, he added.
Lithium-ion batteries comprise three crucial constructing blocks. There are two electrodes, an anode (destructive) on one facet and a cathode (constructive) on the opposite. Usually, an electrolyte sits within the center and acts because the courier to maneuver ions between the electrodes when charging and discharging. Cathode foils, which account for greater than half the price of a battery cell, comprise lithium, nickel, and cobalt. Redwood is ready to seize all of these supplies by way of its battery recycling and processing.
However Redwood goals to do greater than recycle. The startup, which has raised greater than $2 billion in non-public funds, is constructing an end-to-end battery ecosystem that touches the complete life cycle of lithium-ion batteries at each stage, together with recycling, refining, remanufacturing in addition to assessing the well being and lengthening the lifetime of the battery.
Campbell is especially eager for engineers to work on tools growth for Redwood’s factories.
“A serious a part of why they’re (factories) are onerous to construct within the U.S, is that the U.S. doesn’t have the commercial base to make a bunch of this equipment, and specifically, to make novel and value efficient equipment,” he stated. “So novel course of tools engineering is a bit massive piece of it.”
Engineers on the lab can even work on battery diagnostic strategies that to assist perceive the well being of a battery pack, which Campbell believes may gain advantage one other piece of the enterprise.
“I believe it’s vital to start out with the inspiration of the enterprise, which is battery supplies, and we relaxation all of those different tasks on high of them,” Campbell stated including the diagnostic instruments might enhance the underside line. “So if we’re receiving packs, and we diagnose it, and it really is dangerous, that’s an awesome benefit to us to only recycle it straight — I believe it could possibly be important.”
Campbell added that he didn’t suppose prognosis could be majority enterprise for Redwood, however that it matches into the corporate’s general ethos.
“We’ve this constitutional distaste for retiring issues earlier than they should be retired,” he stated “So even when it’s not a significant a part of the enterprise, it’s the proper factor to do for this ecosystem. “And we might, we’d do it anyway.”