5.30 verkor raises more than €250 million in additional financing for its Innovation Centre

French industrial company, Verkor, which is working to accelerate the production capacity of low-carbon batteries in southern Europe with the support of, among others, EIT InnoEnergy, announced in November 2022 that it had raised €250 million from investors to fund its Vector Innovation Centre (VIC) and battery gigafactory, in Grenoble.

Investors in the funding round included Societe Generale, Siemens and the European Investment Bank - which provided €49 million. The VIC is among many European initiatives to build a homegrown electric vehicle (EV) battery industry to compete against Asian manufacturers.

The 15,000 m2 VIC comprises an R&D lab for designing high-performance batteries, an intelligent pilot line with a capacity of 150 MWh/year and a battery training centre, all due for completion in 2023. The VIC will also prepare for the series production of battery cells in a new factory in Dunkerque, on the Channel coast, from 2025.

Together with over a dozen specialists in technologies and industries of the future, including the European Battery Alliance (EBA) - which is supported by EIT InnoEnergy - and Grenoble INP - UGA, in September 2022 Verkor announced the launch of its ‘École de la Batterie’. Training programmes - for all qualification levels from technical training certificates to PhDswill take place in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region at various training centres and consortium members sites.

B E no IT lEMAIG n A n CEO of Verkor

This announcement further cements 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.

verkor.com