Rebaba raises $4.6M seed to scale
Swedish startup Rebaba has secured $4.6 million in seed funding to expand its business of building energy storage systems from used electric vehicle
Swedish energy technology company Rebaba has raised $4.6 million in an oversubscribed seed round. The funding was led by Sistafund with participation from EIT Urban Mobility, existing shareholders, and new European investors.
The company develops circular energy storage systems by combining second-life EV batteries with its proprietary control technology. Rebaba will use the new capital to scale production and commercial operations across Europe. Specific plans include expanding its Stockholm-based CircularHub to 40 MWh of annual capacity, hiring for multiple roles, and preparing to establish additional manufacturing hubs outside Sweden.
The circular battery proposition
Rebaba's core proposition is reusing electric vehicle batteries that are retired with 70-80% of their useful life remaining. CEO Paula Runsten argues that conventional thinking about needing new batteries for every storage system is flawed. "By 2028, returning EV batteries are projected to offer more usable capacity annually than the entire global demand for stationary battery storage," she stated. "The batteries already exist. Our job is to make reuse scalable."
Runsten positions this as a competitive advantage for Europe. Europe has spent years trying to catch up in battery manufacturing. Second-life gives us a way to actually compete, profitably, she commented.
Product portfolio and commercial scale-up
The company offers two main energy storage products. These systems enable applications like load shifting, local generation storage, peak shaving, and grid balancing services.
Rebaba is now scaling operations to meet growing commercial demand. This includes fulfilling previously unannounced commercial agreements recently signed in Sweden and Denmark. The company already operates commercial deployments across Sweden following a year of production at its flagship CircularHub in Stockholm.
Technology enabling global reach
A key technical feature is platform flexibility. Co-Founder and CTO Felix Kruse explained that the Rebaba platform is built to work with virtually any electric vehicle battery. By keeping the complexity within our core technology, we can assemble the rest of the Rebaba system from standard, locally available components, Kruse said. He claims this means essentially any technician anywhere can build a system.
This flexibility supports the company's partnership and distribution strategy. Kruse linked it directly to market reach and pricing. It allows us to offer clean, European-engineered, high-performance energy storage systems anywhere in the world, at a price point that competes with the cheapest alternatives, he stated.
Expansion and distribution network
The expansion of the Stockholm CircularHub to 40 MWh per year is projected to avoid approximately 4,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. The company's growth will be supported by an established distribution network with signed agreements in several European markets.
These distribution partners include KP Energy in Sweden, OKQ8 across wider Scandinavia, nanuq for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and Smartports in France. Rebaba also indicates it has further major European distribution partnerships signed but not yet announced.
Investor Sistafund was convinced by the circular model. Partner Marie Geneste said, Europe’s energy transition depends on scaling storage fast, without creating new dependencies on scarce raw materials or costly imports.
