Nyobolt
Supporting an advanced battery technology scale-up through the journey from R&D to commercialisation
Standards: ISO 9001
Industry: Advanced Materials / Battery Tech
About Nyobolt
Nyobolt was founded by Professor Dame Clare Grey and Dr Sai Shivareddy, commercialising a decade of breakthrough battery research from Cambridge University’s Department of Chemistry. The company has developed ultra-fast charging battery technology with applications spanning electric vehicles, industrial robotics and AI datacentres.
From its origins as a compact Cambridge research team, Nyobolt has grown into a global business with manufacturing partners across multiple countries, and a new large-scale headquarters that consolidates what was previously spread across several smaller sites. The company has attracted significant investment and is engaged with manufacturers and industrial partners around the world.
The Challenge
Keeping pace with a business that never stood still
Nyobolt’s journey has been one of rapid, continuous evolution, in its technology, its commercial reach, and its operations. When the quality journey began, the business was a fast-growing team of under 50 people, predominantly scientists, engineers and a small supply chain team, operating across several sites.
The Company decided to adopt ISO9001 from the outset, ahead of first commercial production and viewed ISO 9001 certification as a prerequisite for doing business and controlling its operations, not a future aspiration.
ISO 9001 was never simply about getting a certificate. As Nyobolt scaled, growing its headcount, consolidating its sites, expanding its manufacturing scope, and extending its operations internationally, the quality system needed to grow with it. In an organisation where nothing stays the same, and the only constant was change, the challenge was how to build a management system that would both scale with the business, but could represent the current ‘point-in-time’ when audited externally.
“We needed to prove to ourselves and our customers that our quality processes matched the quality of our technology. Getting there quickly, without disrupting the team or making a bloated system, was critical.”
— Steven Hutchins, VP Operations & Engineering, Nyobolt
The Journey
Phase 1: Getting certified at speed
The initial engagement focused on achieving ISO 9001:2015 certification against a deliberately narrow scope, focussed around its supply chain activities. This was a pragmatic and deliberate choice. A tightly scoped initial certification allowed Nyobolt to implement a quality management system quickly, and meet its immediate customer requirements without the distraction of trying to formalise every corner of a rapidly evolving organisation at once.
The work involved designing the QMS framework, writing procedures and documentation, collaborating with an internationally distributed internal team and key supply chain partners, managing the relationship with the certification body, and running internal audits to build readiness. The emphasis throughout was on creating something genuinely usable, a system that the team would engage with.
Nyobolt achieved certification in approximately five months, passing the external audit at the first attempt with no non-conformances.
Phase 2: Extending the system as the business grew
Initial certification was only the beginning of the story. As Nyobolt’s operations expanded, so did the scope of the quality system. With twoSB’s support, coverage was extended to include other aspects of supply chain, manufacturing and engineering, reflecting the company’s move towards greater vertical integration and manufacturing scale.
Phase 3: A flexible, long-term partnership
One of the defining features of the relationship between Nyobolt and twoSB has been its adaptability. At different stages of Nyobolt’s growth, and as the company’s internal resource and capability has expanded, the level of external support has adapted accordingly. There have been periods of intensive engagement, and periods where Nyobolt’s own team has taken the lead, with lighter-touch support available when needed.
The result is a quality system that has grown up with the business, one that reflects where Nyobolt is today, not where it was at the point of first certification.
“Having a quality partner that understood our business, and could evolve with us made a difference. The system has grown with us, not held us back.”
— Simon Scott-Moore, Director Health Safety Environment & Quality, Nyobolt
What It Has Enabled
With a defined QMS in place, Nyobolt has been able to meet the quality requirements of commercial partners, backed by an independently certified and continuously improving system. Certification removed a significant commercial barrier at a critical point in the company’s development, and the ongoing evolution of the system has ensured it has remained relevant as the business has scaled.
Internally, the formalisation of processes across teams has supported the organisation’s move from early stage to a scale-up state. The move to a central site, the expansion into new manufacturing activities, and the extension of operations have all been supported without compromising the integrity of the system.
Critically, the quality framework has allowed Nyobolt’s leaders and technical teams to stay focused on what matters most: advancing and deploying a genuinely transformative battery technology.