VinFast Partners BatX Energies For Battery Recycling & Critical Mineral Recovery

Vietnamese EV major VinFast has partnered lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery recycling startup BatX Energies for battery recycling and critical mineral recovery in India. 

Under the agreement, BatX will provide comprehensive high-voltage (HV) battery recycling, material recovery and repurposing services for VinFast India’s factory, and after-sales operations.

Further, it will help in recovery and reintegration of critical materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel into the battery production cycle, as per a statement. 

The partnership aims to drive localised solutions and bring focus on battery lifecycle management in the EV space. 

A statement from BatX said that the agreement will also spur opportunities for future collaboration on second-life applications, urban mining, and strategic material recovery, “supporting India and Vietnam’s growing leadership in circular economy solutions”. 

The development comes almost a month after reports said that VinFast is planning to boost its annual EV production to up to 1.5 Lakh in India and export them to countries in the Middle East and Africa.

VinFast is aiming to begin manufacturing about 50,000 electric cars annually in India and increase the production to 1.5 Lakh cars in the coming years, depending on its market demand.

BatX Eyes $20 Mn Funding 

Founded in 2020 by Utkarsh Singh and Vikrant Singh, BatX claims to be able to extract 99.95% pure lithium, nickel, and cobalt from the black mass of Li-ion cells by using its proprietary zero-waste, zero-emission hydro-electro process. 

BatX claims it operates advanced facilities, including an IoT-enabled automated recycling unit and a hydrometallurgy plant capable of processing 5100 MT of batteries annually.

The startup collects Li-ion batteries from EV makers or battery manufacturers or from factory waste and then extracts the minerals so that they can be used in new cells. 

In partnership with VinFast, BatX will get the battery from the EV manufacturer and then sell the extracted minerals. “We take the battery from them, we pay them upfront, which is a cost-based system, and that is how this industry works,” Singh told Inc42. 

BatX last raised $5 Mn in its pre-Series A funding round from Zephyr Peacock, with participation from LetsVenture and other existing investors in December 2023. The startup is now looking to raise $20 Mn in its Series A funding round in six months. 

“With the funding, we are planning primarily to scale our critical middle extraction and scale up our radar extraction plant, and set up a larger facility by the middle of next year,” the cofounder noted. 

The startup claims to have generated a revenue of $4.5 Mn (about INR 38.6Cr) in FY25 and expected to increase this to $10 Mn to $12 Mn (about INR 85.8 Cr to INR 103 Cr) in FY26.