Electric truck startup Volta has been bought out of administration by one of its biggest creditors, although the future of its 600 workers hangs in the balance.
New York hedge fund Luxor Capital Group has acquired Volta’s UK assets after the business went bankrupt in October following the collapse of battery supplier Proterra.
The group had led investment in Volta’s funding rounds and has created a new Volta Commercial Vehicles Ltd unit for the acquisition.
“We’re pleased to have safeguarded the future of Volta Trucks by facilitating its acquisition by Volta Commercial Vehicles Ltd,” Andrea Jakes, managing director of Alvarez & Marsal and one of the administrators, said in a statement to Sky News.
Volta Trucks, headquartered in Sweden and with a UK base, was founded in 2019 to accelerate the transition to fully electric trucks and was developing the world’s first purpose-built, fully electric 16-tonne truck for urban distribution. It had also recently opened a service hub in north London.
However, the collapse of Proterra had impacted its manufacturing plans and ability to raise capital and Volta initially filed for bankruptcy in Sweden, followed by the main trading entity of the group, Volta Trucks Limited, in the UK.
Volta said it had received “fantastic feedback” after piloting its truck in five countries in Europe and had a “strong pipeline of highly reputed customers” wanting to introduce the trucks.
Volta was also working on an 18-tonne vehicle, along with 7.5- and 12-tonne variants under its vision to decarbonise logistics, while developing a ‘Truck as a Service’ bundled financing solution, providing customers with infrastructure, services and support to introduce trucks for a monthly fee.
