Battery recycler Altilium raises additonal $9.43M from SQM Lithium Ventures

The UK-based battery recycling startup Altilium has raised an additional $9.43M from SQM Lithium Ventures, the venture arm of the Chiliean SQM, the world's largest lithium producer. The investment is a follow-up investment made after Altilium has reached required milestones, taking the total investment to $12 million.

Altilium has a lot on its plate for which it will use the new funding:

• The company will construct what iy calls a small commercial plant in Plymouth, UK which will be used to qualify precursors and active materials with cell manufacturers. The plant will begin operations in mid 2024.

• A first of several pre-processing plants will be built to produce black mass from EV batteries.

• Production at the company's retrofitted hydrometallurgical plant in Bulgaria will start to produce MHP from black mass in late 2024.

• The plans to set up a plant to process battery waste from 150,000 EVs, which is equivalent to around 45,000 tonnes of infeed capacity on cell level, will be finalised.

An important component in the company's ambition to start pre-treatment is an agreement the company made with UK's leading car dismantler Synetiq which will secure certain feedstock from emerging volumes of EV batteries.

Comment

The investment is a very important stamp of approval coming from a company with good insights in the market and long experience from the battery value chain.

The task list is however a long one and more funding will likely be needed already this year given an operation in Bulgaria requires working capital, ability to hold stock of materials, while the company also will construct a pre-processing plant. Looking at many European peers investments only in pre-processing has exceeded the total amount.

In our Global Battery Recycling Database we list both the MHP plant in Bulgaria and the anticipated plant in Theeside in UK as the company by now show good progress.