Battery maker Northvolt raises $600 million in private placement

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish lithium-ion battery maker Northvolt is raising $600 million in fresh equity through a private placement with Volkswagen , Baillie Gifford, Goldman Sachs and Spotify founder Daniel Ek among the investors, it said on Tuesday.

Northvolt, which aims to take on major Asian players such as CATL and LG Chem and targets a 25% market share in Europe by 2030, said the deal would enable further investments in capacity expansion, research and development, and recycling.

Battery manufacturers across the world are scrambling to keep up with demand as carmakers increasingly go electric.

"We are in the middle of a race to establish manufacturing capacity in Europe, and I believe the companies that are best at attracting talent and capital, while scaling their blueprints the fastest, will be the most successful," Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson said in a statement.

"With these world-class partners behind us, we have created a solid foundation to go on and execute our plans to enable large-scale manufacturing of green batteries in Europe."

Northvolt has raised more than $3.6 billion in debt and equity in total since it was founded in 2016 by former Tesla executive Carlson.

Its first gigafactory, Northvolt Ett, is under construction in Sweden with a production start planned for 2021. In parallel, the permitting process for a battery factory in Germany together with Volkswagen is underway.

(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom, editing by Anna Ringstrom and Niklas Pollard)

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