Verkor raises more than €250 million in additional financing for its Verkor Innovation Center

Verkor received support from the European Investment Bank, securing the financing of its innovation Center in Grenoble, which is coming to completion. This latest mechanism mobilizes Verkor’s solid financial ecosystem of industrial partners in the battery sector, commercial banks, investment funds, and public banks.

Located in Grenoble, the VIC is Verkor’s technological and innovation Center: a 15,000m² building comprising an R&D lab for designing high-performance batteries, an intelligent pilot line with a capacity of 150MWh/year, and a training center to meet the battery sector’s growing need for a specialized workforce. Construction is already well underway, with delivery set for the first half of 2023.

For the inauguration of its R&D lab, an integral part of the Verkor Innovation Center, the company raised more than €250 million, 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 finalized, 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” program; 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 headquarters and the Siemens site in Grenoble and the co-investment with GROUPE IDEC for a total of more than €70 million with the goal of finalizing the Verkor Innovation Centre, moving the company’s headquarters, and opening the “Ecole de la Batterie.”

“This announcement is a further concretization of the efforts undertaken over the last two years to build the future of electric mobility in Europe,” says Benoit Lemaignan, CEO of Verkor. “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.”

This financing program for the VIC allows Verkor to unite a full ecosystem of financial partners (investment funds, industry partners and commercial and public banks). As the construction of the VIC approaches its final stage, Verkor teams are now focused on financing the first Verkor Gigafactory with initial production capacity of 16 GWh/year in the Port of Dunkirk. This new investment on French soil, due for approval in the first quarter of 2023, will be in the region of €1.5 billion and will create around 1,200 direct jobs. It will also contribute significantly to the fight against climate change by bringing low-carbon, high-performance batteries to the market.