Redwood Materials reportedly cuts 5% of staff after $350M raise | TechCrunch

"Nevada-based Redwood employees around 1,200 employees, so the cuts affect a few dozen workers. The company, founded in 2017 by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, initially focused on recycling scrap from battery cell production, consumer electronics, and used EV batteries. The company extracts materials like cobalt, nickel, and lithium from those discarded goods and then sells them back to its customers, which includes Panasonic. Redwood has since added cathode production."

"It recently launched a new business that uses those old EV batteries in energy storage products - a sector that has taken off during the boom of power-hungry AI data centers. As of June, the company had stockpiled more than 1 gigawatt-hour worth of batteries for this purpose. The $350 million Series E, announced in October, boosted the company's valuation to around $6 billion, as TechCrunch previously reported. A spokesperson declined to comment on the layoffs."

Redwood Materials cut around 5% of its workforce following a $350 million Series E raise. Nevada-based Redwood employs about 1,200 people, so the reductions affect a few dozen workers. Founded in 2017 by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, Redwood began by recycling scrap from battery cell production, consumer electronics, and used EV batteries. The company extracts cobalt, nickel, and lithium from discarded goods and sells them back to customers, including Panasonic, and later added cathode production. Redwood launched a business repurposing old EV batteries for energy storage and had stockpiled more than 1 gigawatt-hour of batteries. The Series E boosted valuation to about $6 billion; a spokesperson declined to comment on the layoffs.

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