Skeleton Technologies and Marubeni Corporation have announced a significant investment from the Japanese conglomerate in Skeleton. The investment – amount not disclosed – will help fund Estonian Skeleton’s Superbattery manufacturing expansion.
Taavi Madiberk, co-founder and CEO of Skeleton Technologies, said: “Marubeni is way more than an investor, it is a strategic partner for Skeleton and has been instrumental in enabling us to achieve excellent commercial traction in Asia, particularly in heavy-duty equipment and vehicles, and in the automotive sector. We are very satisfied with the market’s interest in our Superbattery and we now need to expand our manufacturing capacity to meet the customers’ demand.”
Masayuki Omoto, COO of Next Generation Business Development Division of Marubeni Corporation, said Marubeni joined Skeleton as a strategic partner in March 2021 and since then has received “enthusiastically positive feedback” to Skeleton’s products from global manufacturers.
“Recognizing the substantial potential in the field of heavy-duty electrification, electrified and hybrid vehicles, and grid energy storage, we believe our investment will help Skeleton fortify mass production capabilities for Superbattery, bring the Superbattery to customers in the fastest manner and fuel company growth.”
Diego Pavia, CEO of EU funding body EIT InnoEnergy, an early investor in several European battery value chain players, said: “We see Skeleton, which we entered seven years ago, scaling up rapidly and following a similar path, contributing to further addressing the European battery demand.
“Marubeni’s investment is one of the top strategic deals in the European battery industry this year and, it is a testament to the excellent work done by Taavi and the entire Skeleton team. It showcases how to take a deeptech company to the market, continue executing the strategy, and grow shareholder value in all market conditions.”
Skeleton is currently ramping up manufacture of its supercapacitors product line with a new factory near Leipzig, Germany, and is planning for the production scale-up of its Superbattery. The company says the energy storage cells are based on proprietary curved graphene raw material, which allows for 50,000 charge-discharge cycles and charging in under a minute.
The commercial co-operation between Skeleton and Marubeni covers Asia, excluding China and India. The Japanese conglomerate, which has over €50 billion ($55 billion) of annual revenue, sells Skeleton’s products in the region, supports commercial scale-up and customer acquisition for Skeleton’s Superbattery in Asia.
Photo: Skeleton’s Taavi Madiberk shakes hands on a deal with Marubeni’s Masayuki Omoto
