Lunaz founder David Lorenz
Funding will pay for new facility geared to electrifying industrial vehicles
Pioneering technology that is upcycling and electrifying industrial vehicles has attracted a rush of investment from around the world into a company based at Silverstone.
An investment round launched by Lunaz has valued the company at $200 million and confirms it as one of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses.
The growth capital is to fund what will be the UK’s largest remanufacturing and electrification facility, to be sited next to Lunaz’s current headquarters on Silverstone Technology Park. The new headquarters for Lunaz Applied Technologies will be a state-of-the-art engineering, design and production hub for the manufacture of upcycled electric vehicles for industrial applications, starting with electrified and reengineered refuse trucks.
The first Mercedes-Benz Econic vehicle has already been upcycled by Lunaz. The Econic is a common sight on industrial duty as an airport service vehicle, in construction site logistics, waste management and fire and rescue.
Lunaz estimates the number of vehicles ready for upcycling and electrification is 80 million vehicles in the UK, USA and Europe alone. The company has already signed fleet electrification agreements with councils including Buckinghamshire Council and private organisations on both sides of the Atlantic and is planning full market entry in 2023.
“We are proud to stand among some of the fastest-growing companies in the UK,” says Lunaz’s founder and chief executive David Lorenz. “By upcycling and electrifying industrial vehicles at scale, millions of tonnes of embedded carbon is saved by dramatically extending the usable life of thousands of vehicles that would otherwise be scrapped. By applying this approach to public sector vehicles like refuse trucks we deliver a result that is better for the taxpayer and better for the planet.”
The successful funding call and the expansion plans confirms Lunaz as a leader in the rapidly expanding clean-tech sector. The company is at the forefront of the industry’s response to the need for more ecologically viable and cost-effective solutions to convert more than two billion vehicles currently on the planet to clean-air powertrains.
Governments around the world have passed what Lunaz describes as ‘aggressive’ legislation to ban the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles within the next decade. To deliver its vision, Lunaz has targeted specific ‘highly strategic’ investors who bring expertise and interests around the world in sectors including engineering, logistics, media, technology and investment banking.
The investors include the Reuben, Barclay and Dallal families, former England and Manchester Utd footballer David Beckham and Brendan Iribe, founder and chief executive of virtual reality specialist Oculus VR until it was acquired by Facebook’s parent compay Meta. It is now a leader in the gaming sector.
Frederic Wakeman, the former managing partner of global private equity firm Advent International, is also an investor and director. “In backing Lunaz I have invested in the proven potential of upcycling and electrification as an effective solution to the pressing question of how the world transitions sustainably to clean-air powertrains,” he says. “Governments and companies need to urgently find ways to decarbonise their fleets.”
