Cactos’ EUR 26 million investment helps power up Finland’s battery industry

The company, founded in 2021, has developed a portfolio of battery energy storage systems to provide reliable energy storage solutions for various industries. The latest funding injection will enable the company to develop and scale its offering further.

Cactos’ storage systems are manufactured in Muhos, Finland, and installed in premises to enable users to level out local demand peaks, offer backup power, and optimise local consumption and production. All the units are aggregated through the company’s proprietary software platform to create a large virtual battery. 

“Large housing, real estate and logistics companies need solutions to tackle, for example, large energy consumption peaks caused by simultaneous charging of multiple electric vehicles and to protect themselves from electricity market volatility,” explained Oskari Jaakkola, CEO and founder of Cactos. “An energy storage unit together with our cloud computing service, Cactos Spine, automatically optimises these functions.”

The company currently owns approximately 50 battery storage units, with the largest, 2.5-megawatt-hour energy system located in Tuusula, Finland. Cactos plans to grow this to more than 1 000 units in the coming years, supported by the new funding.

The funding round was led by two prominent investors, OP Finland Infrastructure and the Finnish Climate Fund, and targeted at Cactos Fleet Finland, the battery energy storage investment fund that is managed by Cactos. The fund aims to raise a total of 70 million euros with a half-and-half distribution between equity and debt funding.

“The growth in weather-dependent electricity generation has also increased the volatility of the electricity markets and the need for energy storage,” said Tuomo Urrila from OP Finland Infrastructure. “We are happy to be able to work together with Cactos to offer solutions that benefit the customers and simultaneously improve the stability of the entire electricity grid.” 

The news comes as Finland seeks to establish itself as a leading battery hub in Europe by 2025, backed by a national battery strategy and a sustainable, collaborative mindset.

“The battery research community in Finland is like working in one big happy family,” said Ben Wilson, a UK-born staff scientist at Aalto University. 

“The reality is that in contrast to many countries that are considering key parts of the value chain like increased electrical vehicle use or European based battery production, like its Nordic neighbours, Norway and Sweden, Finland follows a more long-term holistic attitude to the whole battery value chain and different battery chemistries,” he added.

Finland’s leading role in the industry is producing a growing number of headlines, including the significant 2023 news that Chinese battery materials producer Ningbo Shanshan is planning a 1.3-billion-euro factory investment in Finland.