Decathlon invests in a company specialising in reused lithium batteries

Decathlon continues to expand its investments beyond the manufacturing and sale of sports equipment. Through Decathlon PULSE, its division dedicated to investment and innovation, the group has entered into VoltR, a French company specialized in recovering used lithium battery cells to manufacture new batteries from them.

Decathlon enters a €22 million round

VoltR has just closed a total funding of €22 million with which it aims to bring its battery remanufacturing technology to an industrial scale.

The operation includes a Series A round of €16 million in which Decathlon PULSE and the SPI 2 Fund, managed by Bpifrance on behalf of the French State under the France 2030 program, are participating. This amount is supplemented by an additional €6 million in grants from the Première Usine program.

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No specific amount contributed by Decathlon has been detailed, nor what share it will control in VoltR.

The investment is particularly interesting within the bicycle sector due to the growing weight of e-bikes, although VoltR currently works with a much broader range of applications that includes electric tools, micromobility, home automation, smart cities, and mobile energy storage systems.

What does VoltR do with used batteries?

VoltR's proposal is based on the idea that a battery no longer suitable for its original application does not necessarily mean that all its cells have exhausted their useful life.

The company collects used batteries, individually analyzes their cells, and determines which ones retain sufficient performance to be reused. Those cells are then reassigned and used to produce new batteries adapted to their residual performance.

In this way, an additional stage is introduced between the first use of a battery and its final recycling.

"For the past four years, we have been trying to demonstrate a fairly simple idea: a lithium cell that has completed its first life has not necessarily finished its industrial life", explains Maxime Bleskine, CEO of VoltR.

The company claims that the resulting batteries, manufactured in France, meet the same performance and certification requirements as conventional batteries. According to data published by VoltR, it has already put more than 20,000 units on the market.

VoltR will multiply its production capacity by six and Decathlon seeks to boost a more circular European battery industry

The goal of the €22 million is precisely to move beyond the initial phase and turn this system into a larger-scale industrial process.

Over the next two years, VoltR plans to double the area of its factory in Verrières-en-Anjou, France, and multiply its production capacity by six. The investment will also serve to automate processes and develop new technologies to diagnose and classify recovered cells.

Additionally, the company will build a specific facility to store batteries and aims to significantly expand its workforce. It currently has around 40 employees and its goal is to approximately double that number.

For Decathlon, the investment fits within Decathlon PULSE's strategy to participate in companies and technologies that can transform different areas related to its activity.

Franck Vigo, CEO of Decathlon PULSE, believes that VoltR's model offers "a concrete response to a significant environmental challenge" and explains that the investment aims to help strengthen industrial capabilities, knowledge, and supplies in Europe necessary to develop a more circular industry.

The reuse of cells could become increasingly important as the number of electrified products increases and, with them, the volume of batteries that reach the end of their first useful life.