Redwood Materials has been extrinsic laceration in recent years. It expanded its lithium-ion battery recycling and materials startup footprint well beyond its headquarters in Carson City, Nevada, and signed contracts with Toyota, Panasonic and GM, and began construction at its South Carolina plant and won its European acquiescence.
Still, Redwood Materials CTO Colin Campbell has found a gap in the company’s 1,100-person workforce. San Francisco was the answer, Campbell told TechCrunch, a longtime Tesla veteran who won the top tech spot in August 2023.
Founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, the company is filling the gap with a new research and development center in San Francisco. The 15,000-square-foot facility in the city’s design district is equipped with lab space that supports engineers who ultimately work at every point in the battery ecosystem, from chemical and cathode science to software and electrical engineering. The work will help improve cathode production, an important component of Redwood’s business. The company generated $200 million in revenue in 2024.
The center, which Redwood moved about a week ago, has only a handful of engineers on site. However, Campbell expects to eventually employ more than 50 people.
“We had a really good year and made a lot of money,” Campbell said, adding that the company is limited by its ability to expand. “And it’s employment that limits our ability to expand our engineering teams. We’re just expanding the openings where we can hire. San Francisco was a logical place for a variety of reasons.”
The height of the list is a deep talent pool of hardware and software engineers in the Bay Area, he added.
Lithium-ion batteries contain three important building blocks: There are two electrodes. One has an anode (negative) and the other has a cathode (positive). The electrolyte is usually in the center and acts as a courier to move between the electrodes during charging and discharging. Cathode foils, which account for more than half the cost of a battery cell, contain lithium, nickel and cobalt. Redwood can capture all of these materials through battery recycling and processing.
However, Redwood aims to do more than recycle. The startup, which has raised over $2 billion from private funds, not only extends the life of its batteries, but also creates an end-to-end battery ecosystem that is exposed to the full lifecycle of lithium-ion batteries at every stage, including recycling, refining and regeneration.
Campbell is particularly keen on engineers working on equipment development for Redwood factories.
“The majority of the reasons why they (the factory) are difficult to build in the US is that there is no industrial base in the US to make this machine, especially novel and cost-effective machines,” he said. “That’s why innovative process equipment engineering is a big part.”
Lab engineers also work on battery diagnostic methods to understand the health of battery packs. Campbell believes it will benefit another business.
“I think it’s important to start with the basics of the business, which is battery materials. All of these other projects are on top of them,” Campbell said, adding that diagnostic tools could boost the final line. “So you’re receiving the pack, you’re diagnosing it, and it’s actually a bad thing. That’s a huge advantage for us to recycle it directly. I think it’s important.”
Campbell added that he didn’t think the diagnosis would become a Redwood’s majority business, but that he didn’t think it would fit the company’s overall spirit.
“We have this constitutional disgust to retire things before we have to retire,” he said. “So, it’s the right thing to do for this ecosystem, even if it’s not a big part of the business.” And we’ll do that anyway. ”