With Europe reliant on foreign critical raw materials, Germany’s WeSort.AI raises €10 million to recover them from waste

Würzburg-based DeepTech startup WeSort.AI has secured €10 million in funding to further scale its AI-based technology for recovering critical raw materials from recycling plants.

The capital comes from impact investors Infinity Recycling, Green Generation Fund, and Vent.io, the SPRIND agency, and other public funding sources. The financing is being provided with the support of the BayStartUP investor network. With the fresh funding, the company aims to expand the market presence of its AI sorting system and strengthen European raw material sovereignty.

Co-founders Nathanael Laier and Johannes Laier explain: “By recovering previously unused critical raw materials from waste, we are tapping into a previously untapped ‘urban mine’ and contributing directly to the implementation of EU requirements.”

Recent funding activity highlights continued investor interest in technologies that improve recycling efficiency and recover valuable materials from waste streams and adds context to today’s announcement.

Germany saw three companies recently raise significant funding in this sector: METYCLE (Cologne) secured €14.1 million in Series A funding to expand its digital platform for global secondary metal trading and improve transparency and quality certification in recycled metals markets. aevoloop (Leipzig) raised around €8 million in Seed and public funding to advance circular plastics technology designed to reduce waste and microplastics. ScrapBees (Neuss) secured €4 million to expand its recycling logistics services for tradespeople and construction sites.

Beyond Germany, Jälle Technologies (Tallinn) raised €2 million in pre-Seed funding to develop technology that recovers value from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries and converts graphite waste into advanced materials. Meanwhile, Rotterdam-based Xycle secured funding to build its first commercial chemical recycling facility converting difficult-to-recycle plastics into pyrolysis oil, although the amount was not disclosed.

Together with WeSort.AI’s €10 million round, financing across comparable recycling and resource-recovery startups amounts to approximately €38 million, underlining sustained investment in circular-economy technologies aimed at improving resource efficiency and strengthening European supply chains for critical raw materials.

“Our investment reflects our strong confidence in WeSort.AI’s business model and innovative technology. By preventing fires and recovering critical raw materials, WeSort.AI solves one of the industry’s biggest problems. This investment, our first in Germany, demonstrates our commitment to expanding the circular economy in Europe,” adds Nicky van ‘t Hof, Investments at Infinity Recycling.

Founded in 2021, WeSort.AI develops AI-based analysis and sorting systems for the recycling industry with a focus on the recovery of critical raw materials. The sorting technology identifies electrical appliances, batteries, and other valuable raw materials and enables their professional recycling.

The company says it addresses “a massive problem” for the circular economy: that over 50% of all discarded electrical appliances and batteries do not end up with specialised recyclers, but in residual waste or the yellow bin. This causes numerous fires in the recycling process and results in the loss of valuable raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earths – materials that the EU classifies as Critical Raw Materials (CRM) and whose availability is crucial for independence from third countries.

The EU Critical Raw Materials Act sets ambitious goals for European raw material independence. Today, Europe is heavily dependent on imports of critical materials – rare earths from China, lithium from Chile, cobalt from Africa. These dependencies harbor economic and geopolitical risks.

“We were particularly impressed,” adds Peter Dorfner, partner at Green Generation Fund, “by the fact that the Battery Sort solution is unique in its form worldwide and, with its patent, is strongly protected from competition on the international market.”

WeSort.AI’s AI sorting system uses AI, special cameras, and X-rays to detect batteries and electronic waste in incorrect waste fractions and sort them back into proper recycling. But that is only one use case. The technology can sort out a wide variety of hazardous or valuable critical raw materials from various types of waste, such as:

• end-of-life vehicles
• electronics
• construction waste
• industrial and household waste.

The system has been in use since 2024 at waste management companies such as KORN Recycling and PreZero, part of the Schwarz Group, and not only prevents fires in waste processing plants, but also ensures the recovery of strategically important raw materials.

Today’s round is intended to enable further scaling of the technology and position WeSort.AI as the leading provider of AI-supported recovery of critical raw materials in Europe.

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