July 22, 2025
SAN JOSE, CA, July 22, 2025. Lyten, the supermaterial applications company and global leader in lithium-sulfur batteries, today announced a series of organizational changes that reflect the company’s continued expansion into stationary power and defense markets, as well as its growing European footprint.
On July 1, 2025, Lyten announced plans to acquire Northvolt Dwa, the largest battery energy storage (BESS) manufacturing facility in Europe. This acquisition, which is intended to close in Q3 2025, rapidly accelerates Lyten’s expansion into both the BESS market and the European market. It also brings Lyten a new pool of talented battery professionals in Europe that will be critical to Lyten’s success globally.
Lyten has also seen rapid growth in demand for its batteries across a range of industry sectors, including national security, on and off grid energy storage and data centers. In order to succeed in each market, Lyten is reorganizing its battery development and manufacturing teams to align with a sector focus. Lyten is focused on immediate scaling of production for Drone, Defense, and BESS applications to meet customer demand. Additionally, Lyten is focusing on space and automotive applications in the medium term. This sector focus will enable Lyten to scale commercial production now, while continuing to invest in the developments necessary for future mobility markets.
The following organizational change are effective immediately:
Celina Mikolajczak, currently Chief Battery Technology Officer, will be leaving Lyten. Celina has made an important contribution to Lyten and the battery industry over the last 3 years. She has led the rapid development of lithium-sulfur battery technology, resulting in the commercialization of lithium-sulfur batteries in markets such as drones and defense and led the imminent launch of lithium-sulfur onto the international space station. Under Celina’s leadership, Lyten firmly established its position as the global leader in lithium-sulfur batteries. Celina has been honored multiple times as an Automotive News 100 Leading Women in the North American Automotive Industry.
We wish Celina all the best in her future endeavors and are greatly appreciative of the impact she has made on Lyten.
Karel Vanheusden has been appointed Interim Head of Battery Engineering, where he will oversee the US based battery cell engineering team and will support the integration of engineering functions in Europe following the close of the Northvolt Dwa acquisition. Karel is originally from Belgium and brings expertise in the commercialization of battery and nanomaterial technologies while at Tesla and Dow Chemical.
Dave Mindnich has been appointed SVP of Global Operations, where he will oversee global operations and cell production for Lyten. This will include operations in the US and Europe. Dave brings a wealth of large-scale manufacturing experience, including Senior Director of Gigafactory Operations at Tesla, where he led operations for the world’s largest battery and powertrain manufacturing facility and previously led manufacturing scaleup of Tesla’s initial BESS products. Dave was also EVP Operations at Plug Power, a global leader in hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers and oversaw construction of two factories and was Chief Operating Officer at Cuberg (a Northvolt Company whose assets were acquired by Lyten in November 2024).
With the announced BESS acquisition, Lyten has restructured its organization and is prioritizing investments to support the rapid commercial expansion of products in the market and their expansion into Europe.
About Lyten
Lyten, founded in 2015, is a supermaterial applications company that has received more than $425 million in equity investment and secured LOIs for $650 million in financing from the Export Import Bank of the US. Lyten has built a proprietary materials platform, called Lyten 3D Graphene, that it uses to build better performing, lower cost, and decarbonizing products, including its next generation lithium-sulfur battery. Lyten corporate headquarters is in San Jose, CA and European headquarters is in Luxembourg.
The company lists more than 540 patents granted or pending and is currently manufacturing in San Jose, CA. Lyten recently announced the acquisition of Northvolt’s battery manufacturing plant in San Leandro, California to quickly scale production to meet the demand for American made batteries. In 2024, Lyten announced its integration into Chrysler’s Halcyon Concept electric vehicle, plans to integrate lithium-sulfur into AEVEX Aerospace’s unmanned aerial vehicles, and the selection of Lyten Lithium-Sulfur for demonstration on-orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Lyten was named Fast Company’s #8 Most Innovative Energy Company and named one of America’s Top Green Technology Companies by Time in 2024, 2025 and a Silicon Valley Defense Group Top 100 National Security Technology in 2023, 2024 and 2025.