“Innovation Crossroads” alum Nth Cycle secures $3.2 million in new funding
One of the participants in Cohort 2 of the “Innovation Crossroads” program operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory just secured a seven-figure investment.
Nth Cycle, the maker of a recycling technology that extracts critical metals from batteries, e-waste, low-grade ore, and mine tailings so they can be reused to make new clean energy products, announced yesterday that it secured $3.2 million in funding from from investors led by climate tech venture capital firm Clean Energy Ventures.
Local readers will recall many events where Megan O’Connor, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nth Cycle, pitched the company at various entrepreneurially-focused events. The company uses an environmentally-friendly process called electro-extraction to recover cobalt and other minerals from discarded batteries and mining ores and waste using only electricity and carbon filters. Electro-extraction is a cleaner, lower-cost alternative to the conventional pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy processes used by battery recyclers and mining companies to recover cobalt, nickel and manganese for new battery manufacturing. This technology expands the circular supply chain of critical minerals for the clean energy transition.
“A significant fraction of the critical minerals needed for the transition to electric vehicles are already in circulation today, we just haven’t had a clean, profitable way of retrieving them, until now,” O’Connor said. “Through electro-extraction, we’re turning waste into valuable resources and we look forward to bringing this technology to battery recyclers and miners so we can all move together on a path toward a more sustainable planet.”
Unfortunately for the Knoxville-Oak Ridge region, Nth Cycle is no longer here. It recently opened new operations in the Boston area and will use the funding to execute its technology roadmap and deploy several pilot projects with recyclers and mine operators early next year.
Click here to read yesterday’s news release.
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