Estonia’s Skeleton to invest €25M in supercap plant

Skeleton Technologies of Estonia that specialises in ultracapacitor cells is ready to grow its production in Saxony, Germany. The startup promised to spend an extra 25 million euros and estimates this will increase the workforce tenfold.

Skeleton Technologies had opened the supercap factory in the town of Großröhrsdorf near Dresden in 2017, then investing 6.2m euros. Federal and state agencies bolstered the investment through the GRW programme for regional economic development, and the European Investment bank had helped as well reportedly.

Saxony has welcomed the new investment as well of course, and only this time Skeleton will fund the 25 million euro expansion alone and plans to expand research and development activities and to scale up production as well. Skeleton co-founder and CEO Taavi Madiberk noted in a press release that the company considers Tesla its biggest competitor in the field of supercapacitors and thus has to keep ahead. The EV maker has indeed attempted to get into the market in February this year. For an investment price of 200 million dollars, Tesla aims to take over Maxwell Technologies. The purchase still is subject to official government approval but is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2019. Maxwell Technologies is known for its development and production capacities of ultracapacitors and recently looked to expand into dry electrode technology for batteries.

With the market in consolidation, Skeleton Technologies decided not only to invest said additional €25 million in Saxony but to complete the project fast, that is by the end of 2019. Moreover, the young company from Estonia says it will employ 545 people, up from a current 50 by 2022.

Skeleton bases its ultracapacitor cells on graphene and says the technology provide over 1m charge/discharge cycles. Skeleton’s total investment in Saxony now amounts to 31.2 million euros.

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