Battery company credits workforce for Kokomo growth
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Kokomo-based Green Cubes Technology this week is marking a decade of its flagship lithium-ion battery platform that has helped the company achieve significant growth since its expansion in the city just two years ago.
The company’s Lithium SafeFlex Battery platform is designed to help transition material handling and ground support equipment to electric power, with 10,000 units being sold since its inception.
CEO Mike Walsh says the company has tripled its revenue over the last two years, and there are plans to continue that growth.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Walsh credited the company’s success to the quality of the workforce in Kokomo.
“We have a ton of engineers on staff on location in Indiana, where they do the engineering locally [and] they do the product support locally,” Walsh said. “So, if we couldn’t have got the technical people with the folks working on the shop floor in the same place, it would have not taken off like it has because you really have to be co-located. That’s really the secret sauce: really good laborers.”
In 2021, Green Cubes completed a second engineering and production facility in Kokomo to help meet demand. The company also a new engineering center in Switzerland and production center in Slovakia.
Since that time, the company’s annual revenue has grown from $25 million to $75 million. Walsh said they are not stopping there.
“Our plan is to do that on a longer cycle for the simple reason that we got to be mindful,” he said. “We won’t want to take on too much.”
Green Cubes employs more than 400 people globally and about 150 in Indiana.
The SafeFlex industrial battery system is designed to be a drop-in replacement for traditional lead acid batteries on equipment such as heavy fork trucks and ground support vehicles at airports.
“The technology is getting the right amount of power to the right machine at the right time in a productive way, and so that’s how the growth is happening,” Walsh said. “All those machines basically can be more efficient with this technology.”
Green Cubes also applies its technology to other markets, such as manufacturing, medical equipment, 5G telecommunications and utilities.
Since the technology was first developed and Green Cubes expanded in Kokomo, the electrification market in Indiana has grown significantly. In Kokomo alone, two new multi-billion-dollar electric vehicle battery plants are being developed through a joint venture between automaker Stellantis and South Korea-based Samsung SDI.
General Motors and Samsung SDI are also planning a $3 billion EV battery plant in the northern Indiana town of New Carlisle.
Walsh believes Indiana is leading the pack when it comes to the electric battery market.
“We’re finding the fact that we’ve got other other industries and other companies that are also doing this,” he said. “We’re attracting really good people, and we’re also getting good partnerships. We’re seeing more more vendors and partners that are ready, and we’re just seeing really good talent that’s that’s attracted to work here in Indiana.”
Green Cubes is currently looking to add more people to its team, though a specific number was not provided. Walsh said the company is working toward implementing its technology in other applications where they expect “really nice growth.” With that, he said the company could further scale up with new hires in about a year.