Circular Materials raises €11.8M for metal recovery
Italian scaleup Circular Materials has secured €11.8M to recover valuable metals from industrial wastewater and return them to manufacturing supply chains.
Industrial wastewater can be both an environmental liability and an overlooked source of valuable raw materials.
What happened
Circular Materials secured €11.8M through SAFE financing from investors including CDP Venture Capital, the European Innovation Council Fund, EIT RawMaterials and 360 Capital.
The Italian company develops technology that extracts dissolved metals from industrial wastewater and converts them into secondary raw materials. It says its process can recover more than 99% of dissolved metals, although that performance figure is company-reported and will depend on the specific waste stream and operating conditions.
The funding will support commercial expansion and the deployment of its recovery systems with industrial customers.
Why it matters
Manufacturers face growing pressure to reduce waste and secure access to critical materials. Conventional mining can be expensive, geopolitically concentrated and environmentally damaging, while wastewater treatment often treats dissolved metals purely as contaminants.
Recovering those materials could reduce disposal costs while creating a new domestic supply source.
The bigger picture
Europe’s circular-economy strategy increasingly depends on technologies that turn industrial waste into usable inputs. The strongest business models may be those that solve two problems simultaneously: helping customers comply with environmental rules and producing materials with resale value.
Circular Materials sits at that intersection, but its long-term economics will depend on recovery costs, metal prices and the ability to operate consistently across different industrial sites.