By Marie Mannes

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -U.S. battery startup Lyten has agreed to buy most of bankrupt Swedish battery maker Northvolt, it said on Thursday, potentially offering a way back for the European company that was once seen as the region's answer to rivals in Asia.

Lyten, a Silicon Valley battery startup developing lithium-sulphur cells as a cleaner alternative to lithium-ion, is backed by Jeep-owner Stellantis and U.S. delivery services provider FedEx.

The deal revives hopes for European battery independence after Northvolt - the continent's potential rival to major Chinese electric vehicle battery makers - filed for bankruptcy in March, making it one of Sweden's largest corporate failures and sparking a frantic push to find a buyer.

"Our plans are ... in large part to pick up where the Northvolt team left off," Lyten CEO and co-founder Dan Cook told Reuters, declining to disclose the purchase price beyond saying it was at a "substantial discount" to the original asset value.

Northvolt's bankruptcy trustee said that the deal defused the risk of "complete shutdown", while Sweden's deputy prime minister Ebba Busch said the deal positioned the country "as key to Europe's energy independence.

Northvolt has received much criticism that it had overpromised while failing to deliver battery cells deemed good enough quality for clients, even with help from its biggest customer, truckmaker Scania.

Gustaf Sundell, Scania's head of ventures and new business, told Reuters it was too early to say if the group would place orders for batteries with Lyten, but it was happy with the outcome.

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Lyten hopes to quickly restart the flagship Skelleftea plant in northern Sweden and resume deliveries of lithium-ion battery cells in 2026. In July it acquired Northvolt's energy storage business in Poland, Europe's largest, and is targeting automotive, defence and energy storage markets.

Cook said several of Northvolt's former management would be joining Lyten, though not founder and ex-CEO Peter Carlsson.

"We are focused on developing to be the leaders in locally sourced, locally manufactured batteries for both the North American and European markets right now," he said.

Lyten said in July it had secured more than $200 million in additional equity investment to support its acquisitions and expansion plans.

Cook said Lyten would prove its worth to Northvolt's former customers by focusing first on providing high yields to a single customer. Northvolt's order book once totalled more than $50 billion from automakers such as BMW, Volkswagen and Audi.

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"We actually think they'll come back, perhaps quicker than people believe," said Cook.

The deal includes Northvolt's projects in Sweden and Germany, as well as its intellectual property. Work was also underway to acquire its Canadian unit.

Before its collapse, Northvolt expanded across the Atlantic but later refocused on Sweden as its financial crisis deepened, selling assets for nominal sums.

(Reporting by Marie Mannes and Alessandro Parodi; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and David Holmes)

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