EIFO invests in the recovery of critical minerals from EV batteries

Danish startup Nordic Salt Cycle has closed a EUR 3.5 million pre-seed funding round to bring to market its breakthrough molten salt technology, a low-cost, scalable process that can transform the recovery of critical and strategic minerals from sources such as electric vehicles, wind turbines and used consumer products. The company’s modular approach has the potential to redefine how critical materials are recovered, offering a faster and more sustainable alternative to conventional recycling methods.

Backed by EIFO, existing investor The Footprint Firm and German fund Ananda Impact Ventures, Nordic Salt Cycle will focus on turning end-of-life products such as batteries and permanent magnets into a viable source of supply for critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements. While technologies for this exist today, none of these technologies are financially viable in competition with China and other low-cost manufacturing hubs in Asia. Nordic Salt Cycle’s technology platform will disrupt this by lowering the recycling costs significantly and thereby keeping the minerals we already have in circulation for as long as possible. 

”Our technology platform has the potential to be a game-changer in the recovery of critical materials such as lithium and rare earth elements, and we are thrilled to announce this round of funding together with our new and current investors,” says Stefan Vilner, CEO and co-founder of Nordic Salt Cycle and continues. “Working with our business partners, we can now recover critical minerals from electric vehicle batteries to start with and have the potential to develop our technology platform to a number of other areas, thereby closing the circular loop at low cost and with high scalability.” 

James Amphlett, CTO of Nordic Salt Cycle, adds:  ”Our prototype is up and running, and we have demonstrated that our molten salt technology can separate and extract materials much more effectively than current technologies, using very little energy and significantly fewer chemicals, resulting in unique unit economics.” 

The focus is sustainability and European resilience

For EIFO the investment is both about sustainability and about strengthening Europe’s ability to both handle and obtain critical minerals:

“The investment in Nordic Salt Cycle is directly aligned with EIFO’s strategy of investing in groundbreaking deep-tech companies that enable a more resilient and sustainable economy. We believe Nordic Salt Cycle’s platform can play a pivotal role in strengthening Europe’s capabilities in recycling and recovering critical minerals at lower cost and with reduced energy consumption”, says Axel Bjørum, Senior Investment Associate at EIFO.

“The green transition depends on critical materials - Nordic Salt Cycle’s breakthrough technology unlocks end-of-life batteries as a key resource for securing them. While incumbent recovery technologies are either energy-intensive or expensive, Nordic Salt Cycle’s molten salt process recovers critical materials, like lithium, in a circular, sustainable and low-cost way. We’re excited by how far the team has progressed already in its first year and are proud to continue backing their rapid scale-up.” says Phil Doolan, Partner at The Footprint Firm

“Nordic Salt Cycle stood out in our research as a platform technology with the potential to transform an entire industry. By using molten salts to recover a wide range of critical materials. not just from batteries but also rare earths, and more, the team is creating a flexible, scalable, and far cleaner alternative to traditional recycling.” says Bernd Klosterkemper, Partner at Ananda Impact Ventures.