DEScycle secured over €10 million in non-dilutive grant funding from various UK and European innovation programmes. The capital arrives via several competitive schemes, including €5 million from EU Horizon, €2.5 million from the EIC Accelerator, €1.5 million from Germany’s SPRIND, and nearly £1.4 million in combined support from Innovate UK and UKRI. This follows a €12.2 million Series A round closed in November 2024.
The London-based startup develops metals processing infrastructure designed to recover critical and precious metals from electronic waste. Its proprietary ionometallurgy platform uses Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES), an eco-friendly chemical process that operates at lower temperatures and energy levels than traditional smelting. The technology is housed in modular, repeatable units, allowing for metals recovery to occur closer to the source of the waste material.
Management intends to use the grant funding to extend the operations of its demonstration plant, currently under construction in Teesside. By running the plant for longer periods, the company aims to generate more technical data to inform the final design of its commercial-scale facilities. The funding also supports the integration of digital product passports to provide traceability and provenance data for recovered metals within the supply chain.
With a planned launch for the Teesside demo plant in the second half of 2026, DEScycle has already secured commercial validation from partners including Mitsubishi, GAP Group, and Cisco. As Europe seeks to reduce its dependence on geographically concentrated mineral supply chains, domestic recovery technologies are becoming a core pillar of regional industrial strategy.
Originally reported by EU-Startups Daily.