Northvolt, a Swedish battery maker, has raised $2.75 billion from a bunch of massive names to assist gas its international enlargement and improve manufacturing.

The Stockholm-headquartered firm makes the lithium-ion batteries which are used to energy electrical vehicles and it says it has signed offers value $27 billion with the likes of BMW and VW. It’s aiming to provide “the world’s greenest batteries” by drawing on renewable power sources and recycled uncooked supplies.

The newest funding spherical, Northvolt’s largest but, was co-led by Goldman Sachs and VW alongside new buyers together with Swedish pension funds AP1, AP2, AP3, AP4 and Canadian pension supplier OMERS. Earlier buyers equivalent to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and funding administration agency Baillie Gifford are additionally investing within the spherical.

Complete funding within the firm now stands at $6.5 billion. The newest spherical of funding values Northvolt at $11.75 billion, based on an individual accustomed to the corporate who requested to stay nameless as Northvolt has not publicly disclosed the determine.

Based in 2016, Northvolt stated it’s going to use the funding to increase capability at its manufacturing unit within the far north of Sweden from 40 gigawatt-hours to 60 gigawatt-hours, which is sufficient to provide batteries for round 1 million electrical autos. Manufacturing is anticipated to start out on the manufacturing unit later this yr.

Peter Carlsson, co-founder and CEO of Northvolt, informed CNBC in an interview on Wednesday that the corporate is doing “pretty vital shipments” from a smaller facility that has been in operation for over a yr to prospects who are actually doing their very own “validations.”

Whereas not one of the firm’s batteries are in electrical autos which are on the highway in the present day, they’re getting used on take a look at tracks, Carlsson stated, including that he expects Northvolt’s batteries to be delivered in autos from 2023 and in power storage purposes from the tip of subsequent yr.

VW, which made a $14 billion order with Northvolt earlier this yr, stated Wednesday it has invested 500 million euros ($609 million) of the $2.75 billion and that its 20% stake within the firm stays unchanged.

“With this funding, we’re strengthening our strategic partnership with Northvolt as a provider of sustainable battery cells that are produced utilizing renewable power and are comprehensively recyclable,” stated Arno Antlitz, VW’s group board member for finance and IT, in an announcement.

Northvolt’s batteries are constructed on a “totally different chemistry” to Tesla’s and the efficiency is turning into more and more related, stated Carlsson, who was Tesla’s vp of provide chain in Palo Alto between 2011 and 2015.

Making the batteries in a sustainable method is considered one of Northvolt’s largest challenges, he added. If the world transitions to electrical autos with batteries from coal-based economies like China then it might create a brand new carbon footprint the dimensions of Spain, Carlsson stated. “If we do it primarily based on renewable power … we will forestall this from taking place,” he stated.

The corporate’s predominant plant is in Sweden and it’s contemplating constructing a second in Germany if it may discover sufficient renewable power sources.

By 2030, it needs to realize 150 gigawatt hours of deployed annual manufacturing capability in Europe.