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Moment Energy founders, from left: Edward Chiang, Sumreen Rattan, Gurmesh Sidhu and Gabriel Soares. (Moment Energy Photo)
Moment Energy, a startup turning used batteries from electric vehicles into energy storage systems, announced a $15 million round co-led by the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Voyager Ventures.
The new cash will be combined with a $20.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund construction of what could become the world’s first “gigafactory” for battery repurposing. The grant was awarded to the Coquitlam, B.C.-based company in October. The factory will be located in Texas and should provide more than 250 clean energy jobs.
Moment Energy is partnering with the automaker Mercedes Benz and others to take battery packs that don’t have enough juice for vehicles but can still be used as energy sources for utilities, microgrids and customers including EV charging stations.
“Moment’s second-life battery solution addresses a growing recycling challenge to offer an elegant solution to scalable energy storage,” said Nick Ellis, principal at the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund.
The startup has received a total of $52 million in venture capital investments and grants.
Other investors in the Series A round include In-Q-Tel, Version One Ventures, Overture Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, Fika Ventures, MCJ, One Small Planet and Climate Capital.
Similar companies in the space include Element Energy, B2U Storage Solutions, RePurpose Energy and others.