Banbury-based
Raeon, a leading innovative UK custom battery manufacturer, have formed a transformative investment partnership with
Hidria, a European industrial technology corporation backed by
Gonvarri Industries. Announced last week, this collaboration solves the critical ‘scaling gap’ for the specialised vehicle market.
Tom Brooks, COO and co-founder of Raeon, said: “Historically, manufacturers in sectors like marine defence, motorsport, and niche automotive have faced a binary choice — force-fit standard ‘off-the-shelf’ modules that compromise vehicle performance, or pay unpalatable costs in non-recurring costs for bespoke mass-market solutions that become uncompetitive as battery technology evolves. This partnership offers a solution and avoids the need to compromise.”
Raeon uses its patent-pending FloLock resin encapsulation technology to deliver application-optimised, production-grade battery modules at low-to-medium volumes (one to 10,000 batteries per year) from its UK headquarters. Uniquely, this architecture is fully agnostic to cell format and chemistry.
Whether the application requires the rapid charging of LTO, the cost-effectiveness of sodium-ion, or the energy density of NMC and LFP, Raeon can integrate varied cell sizes and types without expensive re-tooling. This new partnership with Hidria unlocks access to these optimised technologies at higher volumes for companies scaling up vehicle production.
Mr Brooks added: "We built Raeon to tackle the problem of battery cost and lead time. We set out to answer ‘how do lower-volume vehicle manufacturers access their perfect battery without spending millions on development and waiting years and years?
Global mass-market scaleWhether you are building 10 high-performance restomods or 500 autonomous defence vehicles, you need a battery that is optimised for your specific requirements - rarely does an ‘off-the-shelf’ battery tick all the boxes. This partnership with Hidria allows us to support our existing and future customers from their first production batch right through to global mass-market scale.”
The partnership is strategically aligned to electrify markets that demand robust, non-standard energy storage where "good enough" isn't an option, such as the defence industry, automotive and restomods, motorsport and off-highway or industrial vehicles.
Through this alliance, customers gain a de-risked pathway to growth. Raeon provides the agility to enter the market quickly with optimised, UK-manufactured packs. As demand scales into the thousands, production transitions seamlessly to Hidria’s high-volume European facilities, which already supply millions of parts to OEMs.
Boštjan Berginc, corporate innovation and R&D director at Hidria, added: “At Hidria, we are committed to sustainable growth and technological excellence. Raeon’s innovative approach to battery assembly unlocks a vast new range of sectors for us, from electric forklifts to electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft. Together, we offer a complete lifecycle solution: agile, custom manufacturing in the UK backed by the industrial scale and financial stability of Gonvarri Industries in Europe.”
With the UK-EU Rules of Origin deadlines tightening, this partnership offers a timely solution: “Global Chemistry, Local Industrialisation”. The model allows customers to utilise the best cell chemistry from global Tier One suppliers while ensuring the high-value battery assembly is performed within the UK and Europe, safeguarding tariff-free trade.