Princeton NuEnergy (PNE), a leader in lithium-ion battery direct recycling furthering America’s circular economy, announced it closed a Series A funding round with a strategic investment from Samsung Venture Investment (Samsung’s corporate venture arm), investing in breakthrough technologies across industries and from Helium-3 Ventures. The investor demand for this 50% oversubscribed round brought PNE’s Series A total to $30 million. Samsung Venture and Helium-3 join the round’s previous investors, which includes Honda Motor, LKQ, SCG Group, Traxys Group, and Wistron.
This funding round will support the construction of PNE’s first standalone, full-scale direct battery recycling advanced manufacturing facility, which will be announced later this month. So far, the company has raised $55+ million, including multiple U.S. Department of Energy grants totaling $18 million and a $7.9 million seed & angel round.
The company’s technology was initially developed at Princeton University and PNE’s flagship innovation will be instrumental in driving America’s circular economy for battery recycling, one where materials stay in-country, from consumption through reuse, to recycling and remanufacturing.
PNE is commercializing a lithium-ion battery recycling process that is much faster and less costly than traditional recycling while dramatically reducing environmental waste and carbon emissions by 70%. And unlike traditional battery-recycling processes which use much greater amounts of power, water and often generate difficult to manage toxic byproducts, PNE’s patented low-temperature, plasma-assisted separation process (LPAS) recovers up to 95% of materials found in all lithium-ion battery chemistries, reduces 70% energy consumption and lowers the cost over 40%.
KEY QUOTE:
“The incredible interest in our Series A round, capped off by a strategic investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and Helium-3 Ventures, speaks to the importance of supporting a circular economy for lithium battery manufacturing here in the U.S. This funding enables us to implement and demonstrate our capabilities at commercial scale, helping America meet the growing demand for high-performance batteries while also creating high-quality clean energy jobs.”
– Dr. Chao Yan, PNE’s Co-Founder and CEO
