Forest Partners, a Seoul-based private equity firm, has invested more than ₩10 billion (USD7.3 million) in JR Energy Solution, a battery contract manufacturer founded in late 2022, in a deal that values the unlisted company at roughly ₩100 billion (USD73 million). The money came in through newly issued convertible bonds, according to Chosun Biz, which cited Korean investment-banking sources.
For a fund manager watching Korea's battery complex, the immediate question is whether that price is defensible for a still-loss-making startup — and what a buyer actually gets when it pays up for a "battery foundry" in the middle of an EV demand slump.
What the ₩100 billion buys
JR Energy Solution applies the chip industry's fabless-foundry split to batteries: it takes orders from customers that hold cell-design capability and handles the physical work — electrode manufacturing and cell assembly — on their behalf, per Chosun Biz. The company runs a 20-acre plant in the Yongsan Industrial Complex in Eumseong, North Chungcheong Province, with annual capacity of 500 megawatt-hours of anode and cathode electrodes and a cell-assembly line rated at 200,000 cells a year, according to Chosun Biz; the report says a further capacity expansion is slated for October 2026. The Eumseong site is also licensed to produce electrodes using the silicon-dominant anode technology of Enevate, a US battery-materials developer, Enevate said in announcing the foundry's start-up.
Against trailing results, the valuation implies about 6.6 times sales. JR Energy Solution booked ₩15.1 billion (USD11.0 million) in 2025 revenue, more than tripling from ₩4.9 billion (USD3.6 million) a year earlier, Chosun Biz reported. The operating loss narrowed roughly 36% to about ₩6.2 billion (USD4.5 million) from ₩9.7 billion (USD7.1 million), and the 2025 net loss came to about ₩8 billion (USD5.8 million), per the same report. The company has previously drawn strategic investors including Hankook & Company, the Korean holding group behind Hankook Tire and the AtlasBX battery brand, and Eugene Technology, a Korean battery-equipment maker, according to Chosun Biz.
The demand thesis behind the bet
The rationale, as relayed by Chosun Biz, is that battery demand is broadening beyond electric vehicles even as EV sales cool — into energy storage systems (ESS), robotics, mining and agricultural equipment, and construction machinery. A parallel argument is chemistry fragmentation: as the industry moves from nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) cells toward lithium iron phosphate (LFP), lithium-manganese-rich (LMR) and sodium-ion designs, the report says even battery makers with their own lines are turning to foundries for small-batch runs of new materials.
Chosun Biz reported that JR Energy Solution has secured all three of Korea's battery majors — LG Energy Solution (373220.KS), the country's largest battery maker; Samsung SDI (006400.KS); and SK On, the battery unit of SK Group — as customers. That three-way customer claim could not be independently verified; public US trade coverage has named LG Energy Solution as an early electrode-foundry customer, but did not confirm Samsung SDI or SK On.
The exit clock to watch
Forest Partners is betting on a depressed entry point. "The compressed valuation across the secondary-battery sector likely weighed heavily on the decision," an investment-banking source told Chosun Biz, describing the move as getting in early on a company with fast-rising revenue and a shrinking loss while industry multiples are low. That echoes a pattern seen after the 2020-2021 battery boom, when capital chased listed cell makers at peak multiples; this deal instead targets an unlisted supplier after the cycle turned down.
The verifiable test of the thesis is the exit timeline JR Energy Solution has laid out. The company is targeting a swing to operating profit this year and a KOSDAQ listing — on Korea's tech-heavy secondary bourse — by 2028, and has already named Shinhan Investment Securities, a major Korean brokerage, as lead underwriter, according to Chosun Biz. Whether the 2026 operating result confirms the turn, and whether the October capacity addition translates into order growth, are the next concrete data points that will show if the foundry model — and the ₩100 billion price — holds up.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Figures are drawn from the cited sources; the customer roster and deal terms are based on a single Korean media report and unnamed investment-banking sources. USD conversions use an approximate rate of 1 USD = 1,370 KRW.
