Rawr? Green Li-ion recharges with $20.5M to scale its recycling tech

Green Li-ion says its battery recycling machines are the “size of a small house,” so it’s no wonder the Singapore-based startup needed to top up on funds. It’d only raised about $15 million ahead of its latest cash infusion.

This week, Green Li-ion announced a $20.5 million “pre-Series B” round led by climate-tech investor TRIREC. The startup said other investors, including SOSV and Equinor Ventures (the VC arm of the Norway-owned fossil fuel giant), also chipped in.

The deal boosts Green Li-ion’s post-money valuation to $187 million after just three years, chief executive Leon Farrant told TechCrunch. The startup’s logo is (you guessed it!) a green lion.

The new cash will help the startup scale production of its recycling tech, which the firm says can process “100% of all used lithium batteries” and pop out precursor cathode active material that’ll eventually go into fresh lithium-ion batteries.

Lithium is in high demand and mining the metal wreaks havoc on the environment, making recycling tech a crucial tool in lowering the footprint of things like electric cars and storage for renewable energy.

Image Credits: Green Li-ion

Green Li-ion doesn’t recycle batteries itself; it licenses its tech to battery makers and recyclers, including Aleon and TES (which is owned by SK, the South Korea-based fossil fuel giant). Green Li-ion aims to crank out 50 recycling units per year via two factories — one in Houston, Texas and another in Singapore.

As for that “pre-Series B,” Farrant said the startup has split its Series B into two parts, which encompasses the raise announced this week and another in about nine months. “Due to our relatively low levels of fund raising to date,” the founder added, the startup “needed to draw a line in the sand and establish a valuation increase for the larger portion of the raise.”