Collapsed into administration (Jan 2023); assets valued at ~£30M; bought out of administration by Australia's Recharge Industries.
The rise & fall
6 moments · 2019–2023
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2019
🌱
2019
Founded to build Britain's first gigafactory
The site: Blyth, Northumberland. The promise: a homegrown EV-battery industry.
Wikipedia
2022
📈
2022
The peak: ~$1B on a national champion story$1B
FTSE 100 backing and a £100M UK government pledge push the paper value to roughly $1B — before a single battery ships.
Wikipedia
2022
2022
Cash burns, factory doesn't rise
Little revenue, no finished factory, and rescue financing that never lands.
Wikipedia
2021–22
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2021–22
Employee reviews traced the drift long before the collapse: staff repeatedly described a company without a settled business plan or clear direction from senior leadership, and flagged mounting funding uncertainty and a cash shortage they could sense internally well before it became public.
Jan 17 ’23
🪦
Jan 17 ’23
Administration — joins the Unitard Club 💔
Owing up to £160M, the gigafactory dream collapses and more than 200 staff are made redundant.
The Chemical Engineer
2023
2023
Recharge Industries buys the remains
Australia's Recharge picks up assets valued at ~£30M; shareholders are left with less than £2M of a company once worth ~$1B.
The Chemical Engineer
$1Bof peak value erased · 4 years
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Britishvolt promised to build Britain's first large-scale gigafactory, in Blyth, Northumberland, reaching a ~$1B valuation on FTSE 100 backing and a £100M UK government funding pledge. It burned cash with little revenue and no finished factory, and when rescue financing failed it collapsed into administration in January 2023 owing up to £160M, making over 200 staff redundant; Australia's Recharge Industries bought the remains, valued at just ~£30M.
Source: Wikipedia / Stevens & Bolton / The Chemical Engineer (~$1B valuation 2022; £100M UK government pledge; administration Jan 17 2023, owed up to £160M; ~£30M consortium offer left shareholders with <£2M; bought out by Recharge Industries)
