TechMet – a global critical minerals investment company – recently announced it has secured a further $50 million commitment from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) as part of its latest fundraising round. The additional commitment from the U.S. Government’s development finance institution arrives at a time when TechMet opened a new $300 million equity funding round. Now the company has a value of over $1 billion.
DFC is already a major shareholder in TechMet and this will raise its total investment to $105 million, following an initial investment in 2020.
TechMet (founded in 2017) is an investment company focused on building businesses across the critical metals value chain, from extraction and processing to recycling and supply-chain management.
During 2022 and 2023, TechMet has invested over $250 million into critical metals projects across North and South America, Europe, and Africa.
TechMet will use this latest tranche of DFC backing for exercising the company’s option to deploy $50 million directly into the Phalaborwa Rare Earths project in South Africa. Phalaborwa is being developed by Rainbow Rare Earths (a London Stock Exchange-listed rare earth minerals’ producer) of which TechMet is a significant shareholder. And TechMet became the primary funder of Rainbow Rare Earths during the feasibility phase of the Phalaborwa project.
Over the past eight months, and with a major focus on the environmental benefits, TechMet and DFC have been working together to assess the Phalaborwa project, which uses a U.S. extraction technology to reprocess historic phosphate mining waste dumps to produce rare earth metals.
Earlier this year, TechMet, the UK Infrastructure Bank, and The Energy & Minerals Group announced a landmark $67 million investment in Cornish Lithium to develop a U.K. supply of lithium for EV battery production and battery storage solutions.
TechMet closed its previous $200 million equity investment round with the funds deployed across its existing portfolio of assets including Rainbow, Brazilian Nickel, US Vanadium, TechMet-Mercuria, REEtec, Xerion Advanced Battery Corp., Energy Source Minerals, Momentum Technologies, and Trinity Metals earlier this year – which are all building extraction, processing, recycling and manufacturing capacity.
With that funding round, Lansdowne Partners increased its investment and was joined by a number of significant new investors including U.S.-based S2G Ventures, the direct investment team of Builders Vision, which is expected to follow their interest in the new round making them one of the largest backers of TechMet alongside DFC.
TechMet Founder, Chairman, and CEO Brian Menell – who has a long history in metals mining – has become one of the world’s leading voices on the urgent need to build and diversify critical metals supply chains.
KEY QUOTES:
“The signing of the additional funding commitment from the DFC signals the growing appreciation of the imperative to ramp up critical metals supply chains if the world is to move away from fossil fuels and achieve its climate change goals.”
“The U.S. Government backing puts TechMet at the forefront of this global effort to responsibly scale production of these metals, which are essential for clean energy technologies such as EVs and renewable energy storage.”
“We are grateful to all of our investors and shareholders – current and future – as we deliver on our mission to build environmentally and socially responsible supply chains needed for the electric vehicle revolution, and the clean energy transition.”
– TechMet Founder, Chairman, and CEO Brian Menell
“Today’s announcement builds upon existing DFC support for TechMet to develop more diverse, resilient, and sustainable critical mineral supply chains. DFC’s investment, at the same time, supports the transition to clean energy technology while growing economic opportunity and upholding high labor and environmental standards.”
– Scott Nathan, DFC CEO
