Moment Energy has raised a $40 million Series B funding round to scale its approach to repurposing electric vehicle batteries for grid-scale energy storage. The round was led by Canadian VC firm Evok Innovations, with participation from grocery retailer fund W23, and existing investors including Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and In-Q-Tel. Total funding now exceeds $100 million.
What Moment Energy does
The company takes battery packs from electric vehicles, removes the automakers’ original battery management systems, and replaces them with its own software. It then packages the battery modules into larger storage solutions that can accommodate a mix of battery chemistries. This modular design allows customers to benefit from future battery technology advances and reduces downtime if a single module fails.
Crucially, Moment Energy is the first company to repurpose EV batteries with UL Certification — a safety standard that CEO Edward Chiang says other second-life battery companies often claim to test against but do not actually obtain. UL certification affects both safety and insurance costs. Chiang argues that competitors sometimes leave the automaker’s battery management system intact and trick the pack into thinking it’s still in a vehicle, which can make those storage solutions uninsurable or prohibitively expensive to insure.
Scale and customers
Moment Energy has signed supply deals with Mercedes-Benz and Nissan. It secured a $20 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy and is building a gigawatt-scale factory in Austin, Texas. The company has around 72 employees. Its customer base includes utilities, industrial companies, and data centers.
Market context
CEO Edward Chiang describes demand for power in North America as “infinite,” driven by extreme climate events, the rise of electric vehicles, and the data center boom. He notes that Chinese companies currently supply about 72% of the global market for grid-scale storage, according to BNEF, adding a national security dimension. Moment Energy aims to offer a domestically produced alternative.
Tradeoffs
Moment Energy’s approach is more expensive and technically demanding than simply reusing battery packs with their original management systems. The company must source, test, and re-certify each pack. However, Chiang argues that proper certification and insurance coverage make the approach viable for real-world deployment, rather than relying on future fundraising promises.
Bottom line
Moment Energy’s $40 million Series B and UL certification give it a credible position in the second-life battery market. The company’s focus on safety, modularity, and real customer deployments — rather than long-term speculative contracts — distinguishes it from some Silicon Valley competitors. Whether it can scale production fast enough to meet demand remains to be seen.