London’s DEScycle secures over €10 million in grant funding to scale critical metals recovery platform

DEScycle, a London-based startup building next-generation metals processing infrastructure for critical and precious metals recovery, has secured more than €10 million in confirmed non-dilutive funding over the past 10 months from European and UK innovation programmes.

The funding has been secured across a series of competitive UK and European programmes, including €5 million from EU Horizon, €1.5 million from Germany’s SPRIND, €2.5 million from the EIC Accelerator, €1.04 million (£900k) awarded through Innovate UK Investor Partnerships and €578.3k (£500k) through a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. Apart from the grant funding, in November 2024, the firm raised €12.2 million in a Series A round.

Fred White, co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at DEScycle, said, “Critical raw materials are becoming a strategic priority for both the UK and Europe, and that is creating growing demand for new metals processing infrastructure. Securing more than €10m in confirmed non-dilutive funding across competitive European and UK programmes is a strong signal of the importance of domestic metals recovery.

“For DEScycle, this funding helps de-risk deployment by allowing us to run our demo plant for longer, generate more data and make better design decisions before commercial scale-up. It also enables us to trial and integrate complementary technologies into our platform, helping us bring a stronger product to market.”

DEScycle is a DeepTech startup that creates innovative metal recovery and recycling methods using eco-friendly Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES). It has developed a distributed, modular platform that deploys repeatable, capital-light units, enabling metals to be recovered closer to where materials are generated.

Starting with electronic waste, DEScycle states that it transforms underutilised domestic waste streams into a resilient, sovereign metal supply and reduces exposure to long, geographically concentrated supply chains while supporting UK industrial capability.

The UK startup claims that its proprietary ionometallurgy platform enables lower-capex, lower-energy processing, unlocking faster returns on capital and scalable network growth without the constraints of traditional smelting infrastructure.

This funding will support workstreams that are strategically important to DEScycle’s move toward industrial validation. This includes operating its demo plant for longer, generating additional data to inform design decisions, expanding customer trial capabilities and integrating complementary technologies into the company’s wider platform. 

It will also support the development of digital product passports, which are intended to provide traceability for recovered metals and help customers understand provenance throughout the supply chain.

Construction of DEScycle’s demo plant is progressing in Teesside, with a planned launch in H2 2026. It has also secured strategic and commercial validation from partners, including Mitsubishi, GAP Group and Cisco, with GAP Group and Cisco confirmed for customer trials in 2026, as the company moves toward broader commercial engagement.

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