Skeleton Technologies, the energy-storage company founded in Tartu in 2009, has reached a valuation above USD 1 billion following a strategic investment led by Siemens, according to Estonian World. Neither side has disclosed the amount or the terms. As the outlet puts it, "The companies did not disclose the investment’s value or the terms of the deal."
Chief executive Taavi Madiberk called it a nine-figure round.
The company plans to put more than USD 200 million into a scale-up and research programme in the United States, including its own cell production there and research work in Silicon Valley. It wants to supply power systems for AI data centres, where graphics processors change their power draw very quickly and can strain the electricity supply.
The two groups already knew each other. Siemens backed an earlier stage of the company's expansion, and its digital industries unit designed and automated Skeleton's factory in Leipzig, Germany. The plan now is to pair Siemens' electrical infrastructure with Skeleton's power systems.
Skeleton's own figures on energy savings and processor performance are, as Estonian World notes, company claims rather than independent results.
Source: Estonian World, . The text above is our own summary; the words in quotation marks are the source's.
What this means for an Estonian entrepreneur
For an Estonian company the useful lesson is how growth capital arrives: a strategic investor such as an industrial group often joins as a shareholder and brings a long working relationship with it. Before a round, founders should agree in writing how decisions, new share issues and exits will work among the shareholders, so that a large investor's entry does not reopen basic questions later.
When a new investor joins an Estonian company, a shareholders' agreement sets out how the owners decide, issue shares and leave. Shareholders' agreement
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