NanoXplore announces purchase of Martinrea’s stake in VoltaXplore

MONTREAL — NanoXplore Inc., a graphene company, and Martinrea International Inc., a diversified and global automotive supplier engaged in the design, development and manufacturing of Lightweight Structures and Propulsion Systems, announced NanoXplore’s purchase of Martinrea Innovation’s 50% equity stake in VoltaXplore Inc. for an aggregate equity consideration of $10 million on March 24, 2023. NanoXplore now owns 100% of the equity and intellectual property in VoltaXplore and Martinrea has increased its existing equity position in NanoXplore from 21.1% to 22.7%. VoltaXplore was formed as a joint venture between NanoXplore and Martinrea in 2021 to collaborate on developing graphene-enhanced Li-ion battery cells for electric vehicles and grid storage and to explore the potential to build a battery gigafactory. NanoXplore will seek to finance the battery gigafactory within VoltaXplore, without dilution to NanoXplore’s shareholders.

The purchase transaction simplifies VoltaXplore’s capital structure to enhance the access to government and private fundings. Moreover, concurrent to this transaction, NanoXplore and Martinrea agreed to extend their existing graphene commercial agreement by another 5 years to 10 years which reinforces the strong relationship between the two companies.

Soroush Nazarpour, President and Chief Executive Officer of NanoXplore, commented:

“We are closer to building VoltaXplore’s gigafactory and I am quite excited about the future of VoltaXplore. The joint venture was successful in the full demonstration of our battery technology and Martinrea’s support enabled VoltaXplore to de-risk this project significantly. We believe strongly in VoltaXplore and the value proposition that graphene brings to the performance of our cells. As we work towards our goal to build the gigafactory, we are looking to bring in new investors and customers, as well as government financing to support and realize our ambitions. I would like to thank the entire team at Martinrea which was instrumental in helping bring VoltaXplore to this point. Martinrea remains committed to NanoXplore’s success, as evidenced by its increased share position in our company and the extension of our commercial agreement. We will continue to work together in building graphene-enhanced solutions in the automotive sector.”

Following the successful testing and demonstrated strong performance of 18650 cells, VoltaXplore is in the process of retooling its current 1MWh battery facility to produce the larger-format 21700 cylindrical cell. This new cell dimension is an industry standard in the electric mobility market and VoltaXplore plans to produce approximately 130 million of these cells annually at its gigafactory.