Swedish battery developer Rivus Batteries has closed a €2 million seed round to scale its organic, critical-mineral-free flow battery technology, advancing a new approach to long-duration energy storage (LDES) that reduces dependence on imported critical minerals.
InnoEnergy portfolio company Rivus has developed an organic electrolyte for flow batteries that stores energy without relying on lithium, cobalt or vanadium. The €2 million investment round was led by Turbine Capital, with participation from Almi Invest GreenTech and continued backing from existing investor Xista Science Ventures.
The round is complemented by a further €2 million in non-dilutive grants recently secured from Vinnova and the Swedish Energy Agency, bringing the company’s recent funding to €4 million. The funding will support customer pilots and the scale-up of electrolyte production.
“Turbine Capital and Almi Invest GreenTech bring a wealth of experience in scaling deeptech ventures, as well as an extensive network for finding customers, industrial partners and capital. With this addition, we will be able to scale our chemistry, deliver our first customer pilots over the next 18–24 months and bring our technology to market faster,” says Dr Cedrik Wiberg, CEO of Rivus Batteries.
Designed to drop into existing hardware
Rivus has developed a proprietary organic electrolyte designed to deliver higher energy density than conventional flow battery solutions. It can be produced using existing industrial chemistry infrastructure and works with commercial flow battery hardware, making it easier to manufacture and deploy without building a new supply chain.
“Over the past three years, Rivus has developed an aqueous organic electrolyte system with, to my knowledge, the highest energy density and voltage on the market. This forms a strong technological foundation on which we can now build something great,” says Dr Cedrik Wiberg.
Building Europe’s next generation of energy storage
InnoEnergy has backed Rivus from its early stages, recognising the potential of a flow battery technology designed not only to perform, but to scale. As demand for LDES solutions grows, the ability to scale manufacturing while reducing dependence on imported critical materials will become increasingly important.
Rivus brings those two challenges together: a flow-battery chemistry that avoids lithium, cobalt and vanadium, while working with existing flow battery hardware and industrial manufacturing processes. With customer pilots now ahead, the company is now taking the next steps towards bringing its technology to market.
“Many of the leading electrochemical storage technologies still rely on critical or supply-constrained materials,” says Johan Söderbom, Thematic Leader Energy Storage at InnoEnergy. “Rivus is one of the few companies developing a flow battery technology that reduces dependence on critical minerals while being compatible with existing industrial manufacturing. That combination is essential if Europe wants not only to invent the next generation of energy storage, but also to manufacture and deploy it at scale.”
