Woodinville-based battery tech company Group14 Technologies is expanding its Seattle office space.
On Wednesday, a Group14 spokesperson confirmed the company will upsize to a full floor at 400 Fairview in South Lake Union. The 26,300-square-foot space is nearly triple the size of the company's old space in the building.
Group14 first opened its South Lake Union office a year ago. The spokesperson said the company, which now has more than 260 employees, will keep Woodinville as its headquarters.
Group14, founded in 2015, makes a silicon-based anode powder designed to replace the traditional graphite powder found in most batteries today. The company aims to make batteries smaller, cheaper and longer-lasting. Group14 has started with consumer electronics but has its sights set on electric vehicles.
In 2022, Group14 raised a $614 million Series C round and landed an additional $100 million from the Department of Energy. The company is building a 1 million-square-foot factory campus in Moses Lake set to come online in the second half of this year. Group14's Moses Lake facility is starting with two manufacturing modules that will each produce 2,000 tons of the company's battery powder per year, but it plans to have at least six modules there eventually.
The Woodinville headquarters also manufactures Group14's battery powder and houses research and development. The Woodinville facility can produce 120 tons of battery powder per year. The South Lake Union space houses Group14's corporate offices.
"We’re in what I call hypergrowth phase," Group14 co-founder and CEO Rick Luebbe told the Business Journal in December. "Big things are happening fast. We just finished erecting all the structural steel for the first module (in Moses Lake). It’s about six stories of structural steel. Over the next month or two, we’ll start installing the large pieces of equipment."
In July, Group14 acquired German company Schmid Silicon, which makes a key gas called silane for Group14's technology. The companies didn't disclose the financial terms of the deal.
According to the fourth quarter 2023 Seattle office report from commercial real estate firm Colliers, vacancy rates in Seattle hit 25.6% in the fourth quarter. Vacancy rates were just over 20% during the fourth quarter of 2022.
