All Access

Climate Deals

Standard

Climate Deals Thought Bubble

Thought Bubble

Climate Deals Alerts

Alert

mustard

BFD Expert Voices - Climate Deals

BFD Expert Voices

Lyten, a lithium-sulfur battery startup, has a small M&A team that is actively evaluating distressed battery assets, the company tells Axios. 

Why it matters: Funding for battery companies has cooled, creating opportunities as some startups falter.

Follow the money: Lyten has recently been raising equity financing and also plans to kick off a Series C round later this year to help build out its facilities, Lyten chief sustainability and chief marketing officer Keith Norman said in an interview with Axios at Lyten's San Jose, Calif., facility.

Zoom in: There are a handful of assets that Lyten is "actively evaluating,"  said Norman. 

He said more battery assets have come onto the market as companies have struggled to raise funding due to factors including the EV market slowdown, higher interest rates and the reality of competing with China's lithium-ion batteries. 

Lyten already acquired the San Leandro, Calif.-based assets of battery startup Cuberg from Swedish battery company Northvolt. Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. and Sweden. 

Catch up quick: Founded in 2015, Lyten has raised more than $425 million from Stellantis, FedEx, Honeywell, Walbridge, Prime Movers Lab, the European Investment Fund, and the Luxembourg Future Fund.

The company produces a crumpled form of graphene (they call it 3D graphene). Initial applications are holding sulfur together in a lithium-sulfur battery, making a lightweight material for things like industrial cases, and as part of an ultra-sensitive sensor.

The battery is the big draw, as the lithium-sulfur chemistry can be high energy, lightweight and contains no minerals that are constrained because of global supply chains. 

The intrigue: The EV slowdown that has helped unearth distressed battery assets has also affected Lyten.

The company previously saw the automotive industry as an early major market for its batteries. Recently, Lyten has shifted its near term focus toward the stationary energy storage market, where utilities and building owners pair batteries with solar to back up the grid.

The company says its lithium-sulfur batteries can operate better at hotter temperatures compared to standard lithium-ion, making it attractive for stationary storage in regions like the U.S. South, the Middle East and the Caribbean. 

In December, Lyten said it has letters of interest totaling up to $650 million of financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank to support deployments of stationary storage systems in Caribbean nations including Trinidad and Tobago.

Behind the scenes: Norman and Lyten chief battery technical officer Celina Mikolajczak gave Axios a tour of the San Jose pilot plant, which has the capacity to make small volumes (2 MWh) of its battery cells that customers can test out.

In production rooms, Lyten workers were making cathodes, taking a slurry made of sulfur and its graphene and coating it on aluminum foils. The batteries can be made on standard lithium-ion battery equipment.

Mikolajczak says the San Jose production line shows Lyten can manufacture on standard toolsets. "They teach us what we need in our next round of tooling. Great to learn on, not high-volume production."

Reality check: Lyten will need to ramp up its production considerably at its San Leandro and Nevada factories to be able to make batteries to meet commercial orders for stationary storage.    

What's next: Lyten will need to raise substantial funding to grow and deliver high-volume production.

The bottom line: Making a new kind of battery at commercial scale is massively difficult and expensive. 

Lyten on the hunt for distressed battery assets

The cooler funding environment is creating opportunities.

Lithium sulfur batteries made by startup Lyten

Lithium-sulfur batteries made by startup Lyten.  Photo: Courtesy of Axios/Katie Fehrenbacher

Lyten, a lithium-sulfur battery startup, has a small M&amp;A team that is actively evaluating distressed battery assets, the company tells Axios. Why it matters: Funding for battery companies has cooled, creating opportunities as some startups falter.

topics

politics-policy

epstein-files

donald-trump

2026-midterm-elections

immigration

behind-the-curtain

race-and-equity

technology

privacy-tech-regulation

automation-and-ai

tiktok-news

big-tech

social-media

cybersecurity

economy

social-security

inflation

tariffs

federal-reserve

jobs

transportation

business

stock-market-news

retail-news

crypto

media

elon-musk

dealmaking

health

rfk-jr

drug-prices

axios-explains-abortion

public-health

world

israel

axios-explains-ukraine

iran

russia

china

energy-climate

nuclear-energy

climate-energy-policy

climate-change

extreme-weather

alternative-energy

electric-vehicles

science

emerging-tech

biomedicine

newsletters

charlotte

boulder

detroit

kansas-city

columbus

austin

dallas

atlanta

washington-dc

nw-arkansas

chicago

indianapolis

nashville

richmond

colorado-springs

houston

san-francisco

seattle

boston

des-moines

salt-lake-city

philadelphia

denver

phoenix

new-orleans

miami

twin-cities

raleigh

san-antonio

portland

san-diego

tampa-bay

cleveland

huntsville

pittsburgh

axios-local

axios-pro

axios-live

the-axios-show

Lyten on the hunt for distressed battery assets

What to read next