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Hong Kong sustainable battery start-up GRST seeks funding for joint ventures after making finals of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize

  • The eco-friendly lithium batteries technology start-up aims to raise US$50 million over the next two years
  • It aims to fund joint ventures in Europe and North America, as it vies to grab a slice of the fast-growing eco-friendly batteries market

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The eco-friendly lithium batteries technology start-up aims to raise US$50 million over the next two years. Photo: GRST
GRST, an eco-friendly lithium batteries technology start-up based in Hong Kong, aims to raise US$50 million over the next two years to fund joint ventures in Europe and North America, as it vies to grab a slice of the fast-growing sustainable batteries market.
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The company, named last week as one of 15 finalists in this year’s Earthshot Prize environmental challenge, plans to launch a roughly US$25 million Series B fundraising round in the next few months to add some strategic collaborators to its shareholder base.

“Right now, after becoming an Earthshot Prize finalist, our focus is to develop quickly in the West,” co-founder and CEO Justin Hung Yuen, told the Post. “The global lithium-ion battery production capacity is expected to grow from around 1,500 gigawatt-hours (GWh) today to 5000 to 8000 GWh by 2030 … if we can capture a few per cent of it, it would be great.”

Britain’s Prince William launched the Earthshot Prize in 2020 to search for and scale up the most innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental challenges by 2030.

Founded in 2015 and based in the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park in Pak Shek Kok, GRST said it has invented a water-based manufacturing technology that could cut the emission of greenhouse gases by up to 40 per cent during the production of lithium-ion batteries and by up to 80 per cent during recycling.

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The performance has been certified by testing services provider TUV Rheinland, Hung said.

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