Sustainable end-to-end battery recycling firm cylib has raised €55 million Series A funding round in equity financing.

The round is the largest round ever raised by a European battery recycling company, and was completed less than 24 months after the company started operations.

Demand for battery recycling is soaring. In order to ensure the move away from fossil fuels does not entail switching dependence onto other scarce mineral resources, recycling of minerals used in electric batteries must improve. 

cylib was founded in 2022 in Aachen following nearly a decade of research at renowned German technical university, RWTH Aachen University, by: CEO Lilian Schwich — widely recognised as one of Europe’s leading battery recycling researchers —- CTO Paul Sabarny, and COO Dr Gideon Schwich.

cylib’s proprietary process enables every component in a lithium-ion battery to be recycled, making it the only company on the market to offer clients a way to recover all elements from production scraps, EV or micro-mobility batteries. 

cylib already outperforms long-awaited industry break-even points by reaching a recycling efficiency > 90 per cent while reducing the environmental footprint (GHG-potential) of the recycling process due to cylib’s water-based Lithium and Graphite recovery by 30 per cent in comparison to competitors.  

The company initially raised €11.6 million in seed funding, which enabled delivery of a successful pilot line in September 2023. cylib has since completed battery recycling projects for automotive OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and refineries, and is now poised to take its innovative process to an industrial scale and become Europe’s primary battery recycler.  

Through offering a locally-delivered, end-to-end battery recycling solution, cylib can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of the battery value chain, while helping to ensure the resilience of European EV supply chains.

The EU has already ranked the materials inside EV batteries as strategic critical raw materials and set its latest stringent battery recycling regulations accordingly. cylib’s market-leading process enables battery producers, automotive OEMs and all companies operating in the battery value chain to recycle elements locally and overachieve these requirements.  

According to Lilian Schwich, CEO of cylib:

“The funding round we announced today will empower us to embark on our next phase of expansion and deepen existing collaborations, as we grow our next-generation battery recycling at an industrial scale.

The past year-and-a-half has been a truly remarkable journey of growth, and we are immensely grateful for the trust of our partners and the successful projects we have conducted together.”

The funding marks the first time that major investors from climate and deep tech ventures, corporate automotive and industry backgrounds as well as public investment funds have joined together in consortium to support a battery recycling company. 

Co-led by the leading European climate tech VC World Fund, and Porsche Ventures,  the round was joined by Bosch Ventures, DeepTech & Climate Fonds, NRW.Venture, existing investors Vsquared Ventures, Speedinvest, 10x Founders and established business angels. 

cylib’s funding round is the first venture co-investment from industrial giants Porsche and Bosch in Germany.  

Danijel Višević, General Partner at World Fund, said:

 “cylib is a role model for the lightspeed industrialisation of world-leading climate tech research coming out of Europe.”

Patrick Huke, Partner and Head of Porsche Ventures, said :

“cylib is a perfect example of how leading scientific research can be commercialised at a rapid pace.”

 cylib will use the funds to scale up operations at an already-secured brownfield industrial facility in Germany, enabling the industrialisation of its proprietary technology, which is already used by leading OEMs and battery manufacturers.  

Lead image: cylib. Photo: uncredited.