Verkor raises more than 250 million euros in additional financing for its Verkor Innovation Centre

Verkor has received the support of the European Investment Bank, securing the financing of its technological and innovation centre in Grenoble, France which is coming to completion the first half of 2023. This latest mechanism mobilises Verkor’s solid financial ecosystem of industrial partners in the battery sector, commercial banks, investment funds, and public banks.

The Verkor Innovation Centre (VIC) is a 15,000 m2 building comprising an R&D lab for designing high-performance batteries, an intelligent pilot line with a capacity of 150 MWh/year, and a training centre to meet the battery sector’s growing need for a specialised workforce. For the inauguration of its R&D lab, an integral part of the VIC, the company raised more than 250 million euros, with the following breakdown:

• The European Investment Bank is financing €49m as part of the Energy Demonstration Projects (EDP) product of its initiative InnovFin – EU Finance for Innovators – in cooperation with the European Commission, to develop pilot projects in the energy sector. Verkor affirms its status as a company committed to the development of a European electric vehicle battery ecosystem.
• Bpifrance Assurance Export will guarantee €51m of bank financing. This financing, currently being finalised, got a provisional agreement from Santander Corporate & Investment Banking and Société Générale. This strategic project guarantee (GPS), granted by the French Government to “Large strategic projects” allows the state and the BPI to support the development of national champions. Verkor is the first project to benefit from this French state support to strategic projects.
• A convertible bond issue with financial partners like Demeter FMET and the SPI investment fund (“Société de projets industriels”) operated by Bpifrance on behalf of the French Government in the framework of the “Invest for the Future” programme; industrial partners like Plastic Omnium, Sibayne-Stillwater, Groupe IDEC, Schneider Electric and Verkor employees that support Verkor’s project bringing together several million euros of personal investment.
• The total acquisition of the Siemens site in Grenoble and the co-investment with GROUPE IDEC for a total of more than 70 million euros with the goal of finalising the Verkor Innovation Centre, moving the company’s headquarters and opening the “Ecole de la Batterie.”

In the press release issued yesterday, Benoit Lemaignan, CEO of Verkor said that “this announcement is a further concretisation of the efforts undertaken over the last two years to build the future of electric mobility in Europe. I welcome the support of our institutional and industrial partners to make our project a reality. I know we can continue to count on them for the next milestone of our development. I would also like to thank our team who, over and above their unwavering commitment every day, are betting on the future of our collective project.”

EBA250 welcomes this announcement, demonstrating the support from both public and private actors to accelerate the building of the European battery industry.