A shared roadmap with a committed client matters more than an off-take
- Emin Askerov
- May 28
- 1 min read
Off-takes are the holy grail of climatetech FOAKs. You would expect one to be signed by every hardware scale-up. But ask Northvolt’s investors, and you’ll find most off-takes aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
🚩 A typical, conditional off-take goes something like this: “If you hit these specs, and if the price is right, and if we’re still interested… We’ll buy it. Maybe.”
Can we do off-takes differently? LeydenJar, a solid-state battery startup from Netherlands, shows how:
🔁 They run a customer through the following framework:
1. Intro + NDA
2. Sample testing → Claims verification
3. Joint development agreement (JDA)
– Tailor performance specs to actual applications
4. Design-in validation
– Send kilometers of anode foil to the client’s contract manufacturer
– Prove yield, cost, and scalability
5. Then, and only then, off-take
And not a conditional one. A real one:
So, a JDA-based off-take would sound like “We’ve validated your product. You’ve demonstrated cost-competitive mass production. Now we commit to buy X volume at Y price.”
Still, this approach is not for every climate scale-up.
Pros:
You get to build traction and trust with a customer
You get to refine your product to full customers’ specs before launching at scale
You get a “hard” off-take
Cons:
No conditional off-take - harder to raise funds
Longer validation process,
During which you need to somehow finance your burn
💬 Would you take the long road to an off-take? What red flags do you watch for in startup contracts?
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