Redwood Fabrics has in the end discovered a brand new leader monetary officer kind of a yr and a part after its ultimate one departed. He’s a well-known face to the previous Tesla executives operating the battery recycling and effort garage corporate.
On Monday, Redwood Fabrics stated it has employed former Tesla finance leader Deepak Ahuja as its new CFO. Ahuja joins an government staff that incorporates Tesla’s former CTO (JB Straubel, Redwood’s founder and CEO) and previous Tesla powertrain vice chairman Colin Campbell (Redwood’s CTO), amongst plenty of different Tesla expats all over the ranks. Maximum lately, Ahuja was once leader finance and trade officer at drone corporate Zipline.
However in spite of Ahuja’s a few years operating Tesla’s funds, and a scorching IPO marketplace for the rest remotely associated with AI information facilities, he tells TechCrunch that it’s “too early” to discuss going public.
“Naturally, an IPO is a possible end result for any non-public corporate, and we’ll discuss it when the time is correct,” he stated. A part of his warning, he stated, was once as a result of Redwood Fabrics has to this point had no hassle elevating cash from blue-chip buyers. The corporate in January closed a $425 million Collection E investment spherical that introduced its overall capital raised to greater than $2 billion and its valuation to over $6 billion. It additionally added Google’s and Nvidia’s project arm to its cap desk.
“Redwood has, I’d say, the crème de los angeles crème of buyers already, who do have deep wallet,” Ahuja stated. “In the event that they’re excited, they’ll fund. However I additionally be expecting that new buyers will see what Redwood is doing, and so they’ll get similarly excited, and can wish to are available in and make investments and be offering us, possibly, just right phrases as neatly.”
Ahuja’s appointment comes at a pivotal second for Redwood Fabrics. The corporate lately misplaced its leader running officer (some other former Tesla exec) to retirement, along side no less than 3 different vice presidents. The ones executives left amidst a restructuring that affected 10% of its body of workers (or round 135 workers), as TechCrunch first reported ultimate month, whilst the corporate shifts sources towards its abruptly rising power garage trade.
Ahuja informed TechCrunch he’s “fascinated by very cutting edge era answers that have an effect on our local weather [and] that deal with our power wishes,” and he’s stayed shut with Straubel for the reason that pair left Tesla in 2019. If truth be told, Ahuja informed TechCrunch that he’s a “small investor” in Redwood Fabrics.
“In such a lot of tactics, it felt like a herbal are compatible, in the case of the power garage trade, the recycling trade — all of those are such important wishes for our nation and our society that it felt like the best position to be,” he stated.
There may be an plain quantity of hype round AI, with SpaceX about to head public, OpenAI and Anthropic rumored to be bearing in mind IPOs, and billions of greenbacks being raised to construct information facilities. Redwood’s power garage trade is to start with centered at serving to AI information facilities arrange their energy quite a bit, even though Ahuja stated he is not frightened about getting swept up within the exuberance.
“I believe JB and I each have observed such a lot of cycles of hype and disillusion in our lives that we are going to be very aware and mindful of the way we message, how we arrange, and the way we develop the corporate,” he stated. “We are coping with {hardware} right here, which, via definition, brings a definite stage of sanity” in comparison to what is taking place on the software-focused AI corporations, he added.
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