€55 million financing round for end-to-end battery recycler cylib

Aachen — The sustainable end-to-end battery recy­cling company cylib closes its Series A finan­cing round of 55 million. The finan­cing round, the largest ever raised by a Euro­pean battery recy­cling company, was comple­ted less than 24 months after the start of operations.

The round was led by Europe’s leading climate-tech VC, World Fund, and Porsche Ventures, the venture arm of sports car manu­fac­tu­rer Porsche AG. Other inves­tors include Bosch Ventures, DeepT­ech & Climate Fonds, NRW.Venture as well as exis­ting inves­tors 10x Foun­ders, Vsquared Ventures, Speed­in­vest and well-known busi­ness angels.

The finan­cing round is the first venture co-inves­t­­ment by the indus­trial giants Porsche and Bosch in Germany. At the same time, expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors from the climate and deep tech sectors, the auto­mo­tive sector, indus­try and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors are inves­t­ing toge­ther in a battery recy­cling company for the first time. This under­lines the joint effort to build a sustainable battery infra­struc­ture in Europe.

Cylib was foun­ded in 2022 as a spin-off of RWTH Aachen Univer­sity by Lilian Schwich (CEO), Paul Sabarny and Dr. Gideon Schwich and specia­li­zes in the hydro­me­tall­ur­gi­cal recy­cling of used lithium-ion cells. — The company offers a market-leading tech­no­logy for the end-to-end recy­cling of lithium-ion batte­ries and has alre­ady reali­zed a successful pilot line and projects with major car manu­fac­tu­r­ers and battery producers.

The fresh capi­tal will be used to drive forward the indus­trial scaling of produc­tion and the expan­sion of the inter­di­sci­pli­nary team. Since Septem­ber 2023, the start-up has been opera­ting a pilot plant in Aachen and imple­men­ting projects with car manu­fac­tu­r­ers, suppli­ers and refi­ne­ries. The plant in a former chemi­cal produc­tion faci­lity in North Rhine-West­­pha­­lia is sche­du­led to start produc­tion in 2026.

Consul­tant cylib: YPOG

Dr. Adrian Haase (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Hamburg Alex­an­dra Stei­fen­sand (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg

About World­Fund

The Berlin-based VC was foun­ded in 2021 by Daria Saha­rova, Dani­jel Više­vić, Tim Schu­ma­cher and Craig Douglas. It has offices in Berlin, Munich, Colo­gne and Amster­dam as well as an invest­ment team with scien­ti­fic and entre­pre­neu­rial make-up. The World Fund has alre­ady supported 15 market-leading compa­nies, inclu­ding IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters, Space Forge, Planet A Foods, Juicy Marbles and GENUG Foods. Other invest­ments making head­lines include invest­ments in the battery manu­fac­tu­rer CustomCells, the recy­cling company Cylib and in Aedi­fion and Ecoworks for proptech start-ups.
www.worldfund.vc

About 10x Founders

10x Foun­ders is a network-driven inves­tor backed by over 200 entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness angels. The foun­ding part­ners (Andreas Etten, Andrej Henk­ler, Clau­dius Jablonka, Felix Haas, Jan Becker, Jan Reichelt and Robert Wuttke) have alre­ady made over 300 invest­ments and are now conti­nuing these early-stage invest­ments as part of 10x Foun­ders. At the begin­ning of 2021, they joined forces with the vision of crea­ting the best early-stage inves­tor for Europe’s most ambi­tious startup foun­ders. The aim is to support the next gene­ra­tion of foun­ders to help build world-leading tech­no­logy compa­nies from Europe. The “Entre­pre­­neur-to-Entre­pre­­neur” invest­ment plat­form is the back­bone of 10x Foun­ders and helps to bring toge­ther the best foun­ders with the best and most suita­ble co-investors.
www.10xfounders.com

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
http://www.ypog.law