Posh raises $3.8M seed round to automate EV battery recycling

HAYWARD, Cali., June 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Recent Y Combinator alum, Posh, announced today it had raised $3.8M in seed funding. The Bay Area startup automates EV battery recycling to build sustainable energy storage solutions.

"There will be around 12 million tons of batteries retiring from EV between now and 2030. Most of these batteries have 80% capacity unused and thousands of dollars worth of precious metals. Today these retired batteries are disassembled almost 100% manually before they are reused or shredded for recycling. We are changing this by making battery disassembly fast, safe, and scalable. We want to bring affordable lithium-ion batteries to the masses and help create a circular economy for our electric future." said Wesley Zheng, CEO and co-founder of Posh, who did his Ph.D. on lithium batteries at Stanford University.

So far, EV battery pack disassembly has been a manual and laborious process, exposing the workers to a great deal of fire and safety risks. One of the biggest challenges in scaling up the applications of end-of-life electric vehicle (EV) batteries is automating battery pack disassembly and grading. Traditional automation is suitable for pre-programmed, repetitive tasks in a highly structured environment. There are currently many product variants for retired EV battery packs and no common standards in battery pack design.

Co-founder and CTO Chung Hoang said developing flexible automation systems that can handle a large variety of packs and deal with uncertainties remains a significant bottleneck in expanding end-of-life EV batteries utilization. "In order to build a fully scalable solution, we have to build a model that we can train to handle all types of batteries."

Along with Muse lead singer Matt Bellamy (through Helium-3 Ventures), investors include Y Combinator, Metaplanet, Outbound Capital, Starling Ventures, Uphonest Capital, Global Founders Capital, and others.

About Posh
Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, Posh automates electric vehicle battery recycling. By combining computer vision and robotic arms, Posh offers a safe, universal, and scalable way to provide sustainable energy storage solutions.
Posh was founded in 2021 by Wesley Zheng and Chung Hoang and is backed by Y Combinator.

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SOURCE Posh