Those who do not absolutely have to are currently considering an IPO very carefully because of the many uncertainties. Apparently Northvolt too. It had been clear for some time that the IPO of the Swedish battery cell manufacturer would still be tight in 2022. But 2023 seemed realistic. Now the head of the supervisory board, Carl-Erik Lagercrantz (57), said loudly “Bloomberg”
, wanting to take the company public “within the next two years”.
You are in a “good starting position”. An IPO by 2024 is “reasonable”, even if Northvolt does not actually need any further outside capital at the moment. So far, the 2016 founded startup collected about 6.5 billion dollars, is the largest shareholder Volkswagen with 23.6 percent. The goodwill is estimated at around $12 billion. According to insiders, Northvolt is hoping for a valuation of more than $30 billion after the IPO.
According to Lagercrantz, the decisive factor is that you have delivery obligations to your customers. In order to be able to serve them, the Swedes have to ramp up their production. With orders from the auto industry worth more than $55 billion, Northvolt is sold out by the end of the 2020s.
So far, only the factory in Skellefteå, Sweden, has been in operation, and Northvolt has been producing there since the end of 2021. The company has been supplying the first automobile manufacturers such as VW and BMW since May of this year. In addition, Northvolt manufactures battery modules in Gdansk and operates a “Lab” for research and development in Västerås, 100 kilometers west of Stockholm.
In 2025, further giga factories are to go online in Gothenburg and in the Schleswig-Holstein Heath, about 50 kilometers by car south of Husum. After the ramp-up, Northvolt wants to produce batteries with a total capacity of 170 gigawatt hours – this would make the Swedes the largest European battery cell manufacturer.