Second-Life EV Batteries: How Voltfang Raised €15M to Replace Coal in Europe

WEBVTT 1 - > Hey guys, what if the key of Europe's energy future is 2 - > sitting in the trunk of yesterday's electric car? Today on 3 - > StartupRaid IO, we're talking to David Odansia, 4 - > CEO of Voltfang, the startup that turns EV batteries 5 - > into grid stabilizing green powerhouses. We'll 6 - > ask how did a broken camper battery lead to a 7 - > 15 million US dollar raise? What's behind Europe's 8 - > biggest second life battery factory?

And how do you pitch 9 - > a vision bold enough to replace coal? 10 - > You don't want to miss this. Stay tuned. 11 - > Welcome to Startuprad IO, 12 - > your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German 13 - > startup scene with news, interviews and 14 - > live events.

15 - > David Usanti is the CEO and co founder of Voltfang, a 16 - > German climate tech startup that transforms used electric 17 - > car batteries into cutting edge stationary 18 - > energy storage systems. With a background in 19 - > industrial engineering from rvthen 20 - > R wth Aachen, David leads one 21 - > of Europe's most ambitious second life battery 22 - > initiatives. A company that just raised 15 million 23 - > euros, opened the continent's largest second 24 - > life battery factory and secured projects with 25 - > partners like Stuttgart Airport and grid operators.

26 - > WorldFunk's technology is not only reducing 27 - > CO2, but also decentralizing energy security 28 - > across Europe. David, welcome to the show. 29 - > Thanks for having me. Totally my pleasure.

We. We already made some 30 - > jokes before we started, so we both pretty relaxed. 31 - > Take us back to the camper trip that sparked 32 - > world fun. When did you realize there was a business 33 - > behind repurposing EV batteries?

And are you still 34 - > camping? I wish. I 35 - > actually wish I was still camping. It's.

It's a 36 - > long time ago when I. When we were camping the last time. 37 - > But to start the story, I'm David, co founder and CEO 38 - > of Vol. I'm originally from Cologne, so in Germany we say 39 - > Kung.

Then I moved to Aachen because of my studies 10 years 40 - > ago, roughly 11, where I also met my two co founders, 41 - > Afin and Roman. So we. We started studying 42 - > together at the rwth. And if you 43 - > are studying there, you always want to escape 44 - > when the exams, the exam phase is over.

45 - > So what we did, we bought a camper van together. And the 46 - > reason was just to get out, to get to the Netherlands, to the Belgium, 47 - > to every kind of party, festival or vacation 48 - > we could to get some freedom back. And that's what we did. 49 - > We bought a camper van, an old time of year Ducato, 50 - > which we lovely called Mia.

51 - > And with Mia we did everything. And the 52 - > problem was just that Mia is an old timer 53 - > with not such a huge motorization and the batteries 54 - > was as old as MIA. And in Germany you need to be 30 55 - > years or plus years old to be an old timer. Therefore you know 56 - > how degraded the battery was.

So our idea was to 57 - > change first of all the battery storage system inside of 58 - > it and also to integrate a solar panel on the roof. Because 59 - > if anybody, everybody wants to charge their phones, then the battery gets 60 - > empty extremely quickly. So we decided to do that. Roman 61 - > just jumped on the roof and put a solar panel 62 - > from ebay Klein inside, inside of it or on top of it.

63 - > And then the idea was, which kind of battery shall we take? And 64 - > we found out that you could buy Tesla batteries 65 - > just out of the Eber Kleinenzeigen. And 66 - > therefore we said, why shouldn't we take them? Easy 67 - > answer, way too heavy.

And the motorization is so bad we just 68 - > go downhill if we want to get up a hill. Therefore 69 - > we decided not to do that and 70 - > we bought another battery storage and then we put it 71 - > inside. Everything was fine. But a few weeks later, 72 - > Roman's father just asked him why, whether he knows where to buy 73 - > a storage system for his workshop.

So he has a 74 - > solar panel on the roof and he wants to consume as much solar 75 - > as possible. And we engineers are really 76 - > naive and we think we can do everything. Therefore Rohan just said, 77 - > we can build you one. And that's what we actually did.

78 - > We just closed the doors behind ourselves 79 - > for we anticipated three days. In the end it was two weeks 80 - > to build a storage system with these kind of Tesla modules, everything 81 - > based on open source. And after two weeks and a 82 - > lot of, no, not a lot really less sleep, 83 - > we were able to actually run the system. 84 - > And then we thought, look, we are at the end of our 85 - > studies, we don't want to just end up in a corporate, we want to do 86 - > something which matters.

And actually we want to be free also in our work. 87 - > Therefore we said, look, let's just sell it from the 88 - > neighbor to the next neighbor and maybe to five other neighbors. So that 89 - > was the idea, just to sell one by another. And we 90 - > didn't even thought about VC startup and raising 91 - > a lot of money and so on, so forth.

We just thought, maybe that's a 92 - > solid business. And after the university, when you 93 - > don't do it after university, when shall you do it then? And therefore 94 - > we started World Fund. 95 - > Interesting story.

I have to admit. Taking it 96 - > from there, what was your first major 97 - > challenge like tech regulation or team that 98 - > made you doubt that your idea may work? 99 - > So in the end we just started, 100 - > we had the tech, we had a prototype running, 101 - > we didn't have so much knowledge about batteries. Therefore the tech was one of the 102 - > biggest things, we actually didn't care about regulation so much.

We just said, 103 - > okay, they have pilot projects, we just start and try. And 104 - > therefore we didn't, we didn't think so much about regulation 105 - > and the team, since we three are friends 106 - > and long time friends, we didn't care about the team 107 - > either. And also the RWTH has a lot of 108 - > engineers who are like minded, therefore that was also not 109 - > an issue. So tech was the biggest thing and selling our storage 110 - > systems with the limited amount of capital we had 111 - > in the beginning.

So we just said, look, how could we develop 112 - > something with so much so less money? And 113 - > then we tried to sell something which we didn't even have and it 114 - > was actually really hard. And 115 - > then like after a half a year, one year, we still was 116 - > wasn't able to sell one. But that was also the time 117 - > we thought shall we do that?

Maybe it doesn't work out, and so on, 118 - > so forth. But since we started, since we said 119 - > why it should work, because it's logic 120 - > that we need something like this. If you have solar, you need to store it 121 - > somewhere either or you will put everything into 122 - > the grid and destabilize it. So we said, look, we just do it 123 - > for one, two years and if it doesn't work out, we try something 124 - > different.

But actually it worked out. 125 - > I see, so at one point 126 - > you realized it works out. I was wondering when you 127 - > were a student in Aachen, 128 - > now you're cleantech founder, helping to rewire your 129 - > script, did that also change your self image? 130 - > Totally.

To be completely honest, it 131 - > changed it totally. I in the university, 132 - > if you are at the RWTH and you are not the smartest person on earth, 133 - > you will be average or below average. And therefore I always had the 134 - > feeling of not fitting because all the others 135 - > were way better engineers. For example, Afshin, which is one of the brightest minds 136 - > I know, Roman as well.

And therefore I always had 137 - > the feeling of not being being able to do what the engineers are doing. 138 - > And therefore I 139 - > didn't knew what in the future I actually 140 - > will be bringing value of. 141 - > And that was something I had in the beginning. Now I know actually somebody 142 - > who can, who is not the inventor, but who can 143 - > explain what we have invented to people in 144 - > easy words is.

Is also something necessary and therefore 145 - > it changed completely. My confidence boosted. 146 - > We hold ourselves humble all the time. But still 147 - > after five years, after building up a not 148 - > small company anymore, rather a big company, 149 - > you have some self confidence in your decisions, in the 150 - > skills you have, and therefore it changed.

151 - > I see. From our audience, I 152 - > would like to Know what made you believe in your 153 - > startup, share in the comments and or tag us 154 - > wherever you're sharing this. We are on LinkedIn, we are an 155 - > ax, we're in blue sky threads and so on and so forth. 156 - > From a very good spot.

Let's take us 157 - > to your darkest day. There must have been a day when 158 - > a pilot failed a route, a funding round almost fell 159 - > through. What kept you from giving up? 160 - > So the most important thing in the whole 161 - > journey is Roman and Afcin the team.

162 - > Since we we had always like a customer 163 - > said I want to have the storage system, huge deal. Then they dropped. 164 - > We had funding rounds where we had really, 165 - > really less time actually to pay everybody. 166 - > And always we always kept each other's back.

167 - > That was incredibly important. If something doesn't 168 - > work out, it was not like I told you so. It was like how can 169 - > I help? Let's keep on doing it, otherwise we do something different 170 - > and we will be successful either way.

And this kind of 171 - > mindset helped us through a lot of. A lot of 172 - > phases which weren't good and but we 173 - > still keep on doing it because we said what shall we 174 - > lose? What have we. What can we lose?

And 175 - > therefore we just keep on going. The friendship 176 - > just grew and actually these 177 - > things together were like the resilience we needed to overcome this kind 178 - > of. Yeah. Darker times.

179 - > I actually plan to put right here some questions about your co 180 - > founder and team dynamics. That works really well. You've lived and worked 181 - > with your co founders for years. What is the biggest I do.

182 - > What is the biggest people lesson you had to learn the hard 183 - > way there? Actually my two confidants and I, 184 - > we still are living together and 185 - > we share a dog and we do a lot of 186 - > things together, sometimes also on vacation and things like this. Therefore 187 - > one thing I learned which is really important is having 188 - > people around you you can trust who have the same values and who 189 - > are loyal. This is such a relief in your 190 - > whole life and who actually keep on 191 - > want to to.

You want to compete with them, you want to be better. You 192 - > the best of yourself. Therefore this 193 - > is something which is really good. But on 194 - > the hard way.

The most important thing is 195 - > sales people can sell themselves really 196 - > good. Therefore if you think you 197 - > have the best salesperson on earth, you 198 - > can be completely wrong. And that's something we learned on 199 - > a hardware. A lot of times.

200 - > You and your two co founders still live together. Just between you 201 - > and me and something like 50,000 listeners, who's the one who doesn't do the 202 - > dishes? All three are not so good 203 - > at this. Therefore let's Call 204 - > it all of us.

I see, that's fine 205 - > but we don't. Do so much dishes anyways because 206 - > we are always late at work. But, but to be, to be fair, 207 - > we have really strict things who is 208 - > doing what. So for example, Roman is most of the times 209 - > like getting the groceries.

Afin is the one of the best 210 - > cooks and I do the rest. 211 - > Okay, I see going a little bit into 212 - > a potential emotional toll here you are operating at the heart 213 - > of energy, climate and impact. What's 214 - > been a personal toll of building this climate 215 - > tech rocket ship. So if you don't want to 216 - > make it your living or your your life, 217 - > then you will probably have a hard time to be 218 - > successful.

What I heard from my family 219 - > in the last few months, a lot of times you are, 220 - > you haven't been around at the weekends and so much 221 - > you weren't available over the last five years. So much. 222 - > Because I actually had a lot of things to 223 - > do and if I'm not doing that, I'm 224 - > trying to take my time and calm down. So 225 - > it needs also a lot of self discipline, 226 - > a lot of time and also a lot of focus on 227 - > yourself to be the best you can for the company, 228 - > for the team and for the growth.

So you, 229 - > you for sure you have your time with your family, your friends, but it's 230 - > lesser than before. Plus 231 - > I also do feel the value of just sitting 232 - > in the evening outside on our covered porch here. Just 233 - > be by yourself, do something you enjoy, for example, listening to an 234 - > audiobook and just have to do nothing. No, to do that gets 235 - > a very much higher value over time.

Totally. Having a 236 - > book, reading it and being completely by yourself 237 - > is incredibly helpful for calming down. Talking about 238 - > breaks here. We will be back after our short ad break 239 - > here.

Then we talk about make or break moments, founder 240 - > misconceptions and vulnerability to value. 241 - > Hope to have you back soon. 242 - > Hey guys, welcome back to the interview with David 243 - > from Voltfang. We've been talking about a lot 244 - > already and now I want to dig a little bit deeper.

The make 245 - > or break moment you've transitioned from a startup 246 - > to scale up. Was there point 247 - > when you had to pivot hard or double down? Yes, a 248 - > lot of times. So in the beginning 249 - > we started as a residual storage 250 - > provider.

So for the home storage we figured out 251 - > that's not the best way to grow. Therefore we decided 252 - > to pivot into commercial industrial. We did a 253 - > lot of things by ourselves which we said no, we need to 254 - > focus and focus and focus. Therefore 255 - > we needed to pivot from home storage to 256 - > commercial industrial storage system.

We needed to Also 257 - > change sometimes the business plan, the strategy, 258 - > so on, so forth. So yes, a lot of times 259 - > you need to always evolve yourself. You need to, you 260 - > have a lot of evolutions within yourself as 261 - > the company leader, but also the company as itself. 262 - > I was wondering, is there like one moment that extremely, 263 - > extremely has been sticking to your mind for that.

When 264 - > we started, we wanted to give the people 265 - > the opportunity to actually 266 - > produce and own their own energy. So if you 267 - > have, if you own a home or you are living in a home, then the 268 - > solar energy, the storage system, you can be 269 - > as self sufficient as possible. Giving away this 270 - > kind of dream of being able to 271 - > help everybody to decentralize the energy, that was a 272 - > hard moment. So what I mean is 273 - > the pivot from home storage to commercial industrial was 274 - > hard times.

You misconception. I'm very sure 275 - > not everything worked out the way it should be. 276 - > But what were you completely 277 - > wrong about when you launched like tech readiness, market 278 - > demand, or was this something else? And how did you fix it?

279 - > Yeah, the misconception is really in the 280 - > DNA of an engineer to be able to do everything 281 - > by yourself. So we started to, to develop and testing 282 - > facility, we, we wanted to develop 283 - > and certify a Bennett battery management system, the whole 284 - > system by itself, then the energy management system. So we 285 - > wanted to do everything on the horizontal 286 - > to actually on the tech side because we thought, okay, Tesla can do 287 - > it, why shouldn't we do it?

And there was 288 - > actually one of the biggest mixed misconceptions we, 289 - > we had since you need 290 - > to focus, you need to focus, focus. And again, you need to 291 - > focus to be able to grow fast. And that's 292 - > something we figured out rather sooner. But 293 - > for us it was late after two years or three years.

294 - > And therefore we burned a lot of money and 295 - > time by following different 296 - > paths, which in the end we needed to cut and just 297 - > focus on the main things we need to do. 298 - > You've shared openly about building in a 299 - > tough space, what part of yourself felt like a 300 - > liability, but turned out to be an asset. 301 - > So as I mentioned, when I was studying, 302 - > I always had the feeling that not being able to actually 303 - > get to be able to invent something new 304 - > is a huge liability.

To not be able to 305 - > understand everything on point in the first second 306 - > when you were in mechanics or physics or something like this. That 307 - > was in my opinion always a bad liability for 308 - > myself. But this 309 - > turned to be something my biggest asset 310 - > where because I believe being able to understand them and 311 - > after a while and then being able to also 312 - > explain it to everybody was extremely important. If you 313 - > are in a team of really true engineers.

314 - > And therefore this is something I believe 315 - > which is from liability to assets. 316 - > For our audience. Guys, what's 317 - > one founder trait you've turned from a liability in a 318 - > powerhouse? Let us know on threads or LinkedIn.

319 - > There are always surprises when you're an entrepreneur. 320 - > What was the most unexpected insight you've 321 - > learned from a customer? Supermarkets, airports or grid 322 - > operators? So 323 - > what we actually found out 324 - > was that all of the companies didn't have so much 325 - > knowledge about their energy space.

They didn't knew how 326 - > much they are actually consuming and how much they're producing, how much 327 - > they need, what they can actually avoid 328 - > on cost of the energy. Therefore that was 329 - > something we actually figured out really quickly that 330 - > we can, we need to show 331 - > everybody what they are capable of. And 332 - > this is something we didn't expect. But 333 - > that's actually also something which helps us a lot to grow because 334 - > there are so many potentials we with 335 - > our battery storage system can take for any kind of 336 - > customer.

Therefore that was amazing to figure out. If you are a huge 337 - > company like Bayer or something, then you know everything about your energy. 338 - > But everything below that there you don't have the capabilities 339 - > of actually figuring out everything. And there that's something 340 - > we want to help with.

It's like almost 341 - > my level. I know there's a power outlet, I plug it 342 - > in and every year I go to the cheapest provider. So 343 - > that's it. 344 - > Thank you for the answer so far.

Now I would like to look a little 345 - > bit ahead five years maybe. What's your moonshot for 346 - > Voltfang? A coal free grid. European energy independence.

347 - > So we want to decentralize Europe. We 348 - > want to give Europe the resilience of being able 349 - > to protect their energy transition, energy grids, everything. 350 - > And that's something where we believe as Volfang we 351 - > can help by becoming one of the biggest 352 - > energy providers in Europe. We want to put 353 - > smaller and bigger storage system everywhere in the countries 354 - > and then also connect them to a virtual power plant with who we 355 - > then can for example, which is also our vision 356 - > to shut down Weissweiler which has 1.

6 357 - > gigawatt. That's actually our 358 - > our moonshot of Voltfang getting rid of 359 - > coal as soon as possible with the resilient 360 - > energy grid of Europe. As a last question, I 361 - > would like you to reflect a little bit. If your 40 year old 362 - > self could speak to you now, what would they say about this 363 - > moment in Voltfunk's journey?

Good 364 - > question. If a 40 years old 365 - > self would tell me or would look at the moment right now, 366 - > they would probably say how The F 367 - > did. How the F did you come so far and how did 368 - > you manage to get over the next steps? Because right 369 - > now we have so many things which are incredibly cool, 370 - > which we are developing right now.

Where two or 371 - > three years ago it didn't. It was like slow growth. And now 372 - > we can really show the hockey stick, which I always promised the investors. 373 - > But now we are able to do that.

Therefore, I believe 374 - > they will. If you look into the retrospective, 375 - > then you will figure out how much myself, 376 - > Voltfang and the company grew within this short amount 377 - > of time, within the last year to the next one or two 378 - > years. I know that from some projects, looking 379 - > at the presentation, then looking at the real thing and think, huh, that really 380 - > worked out. What a surprise.

381 - > That's a. The funny thing is I'm. I never 382 - > know how we got here, but I know where we'll go in the 383 - > next years. 384 - > Okay, we close with this indirect Heisenberg quote.

385 - > David, with such a pleasure having you as guest. Best of luck and 386 - > hope to have you back in a few years doing an update. I would 387 - > love to. Thank you.

Have a good day. Bye. Bye. 388 - > Bye.

389 - > That's all, folks. Find more news, streams, 390 - > events and 391 - > interviews@www.startuprad.IO.

392 - > remember, sharing is car.