In 2024, a number of new EU regulations should enter into force, which will strengthen the obligation of manufacturers and retailers of electric vehicles to recycle batteries at the end of their natural life. German battery recycling startup Cylib jumped at the chance, raising a total of 11.6 million euros ($12.6 million) to build a recycling plant.
“For too long, battery recycling has not been effective enough for businesses to benefit,” said Cylib co-founder and COO Gideon Schwich. “We need to raise awareness among different stakeholders to ensure that battery recycling receives the attention it deserves to enable a circular economy in battery use.”
The company says that over the next six to 12 months it will work to recycle the first batteries provided by its pilot partners, demonstrating that the company’s process is scalable, alongside the challenge of expanding the chains supply and customers.
“The objective of this fundraising was to accelerate the industrialization of our sustainable recycling process, developed over years of research. We now want to scale the process to industrial levels, with plans to establish a state-of-the-art recycling facility so it can serve more customers across Europe,” said Lilian Schwich, co-founder and CEO of Cylib. , in an interview with TechCrunch.
The main investor in this round is World Fund, while previous investors include Vsquared Ventures and Speedinvest. For this round, 10x founders also joined. The current round is an extension of €8 million, bringing the total amount raised for the company’s seed round to €11.6 million.
“The Global Fund provides strong climate capacity, deep technology knowledge and operational expertise with an extensive network. That is why we are also very pleased that Dr. Mark Windeknecht is joining the council as an observer,” says Schwich. “World Fund only invests in startup technologies that can save at least 100 megatonnes of CO2e per year by 2040. World Fund is also joined by 10x Founders, who bring a wealth of knowledge to a founder’s journey and will help build the business even stronger.”
The company aims to create the most efficient and sustainable recycling process for lithium batteries, such as those used in electric vehicles. The company has created a process that allows it to recover end-of-life batteries, recover resources and produce new raw materials. The idea is to close the loop and ensure that the mobility sector can run on electrified and regenerative energy. The company claims to have a recycling efficiency of 90%.
“By doing so, we can also enable the traceability of all resources and ensure supply chain transparency, drastically reducing the environmental footprint of batteries and advancing the decarbonization of mobility and transport,” says Lilian Schwich, pointing out that this reduces the need to extract additional lithium. “This will enable true green and circular mobility.”