Linca Launches to Scale Onshore Critical Mineral Recovery, Secures $5M First Close on Seed Round

Linca, a critical mineral recovery company, today announced its formal launch alongside a successful NZ$5 million first close of its seed funding round.  

The round was led by Motion Capital, a specialist cleantech venture capital investor, and is expected to have a final close at NZ$7 million. Linca also has backing from a strong cohort of other deep tech investors, including Icehouse Ventures, K1W1, Booster, Aspire and Enterprise Angels.

The capital raised will fund Linca’s scale-up of a technology to help resolve a supply chain vulnerability in the global energy transition: the scarcity of onshore critical mineral refining capacity for lithium-ion batteries within OECD states.

Linca built its proprietary hydrometallurgical technology within Mint Innovation, an electronic waste processing innovator, who retain a minority stake in the new venture. Dr. Ollie Crush, Mint co-founder and former Chief Scientific Officer, has been appointed CEO of Linca. The two companies will continue to leverage their complementary expertise from their shared facility in Auckland.

“Seeing our lithium-ion battery recovery project grow from an R&D project into an independent business is a real milestone,” said Dr. Ollie Crush. “I’d like to thank our investors for their early support. The team and I am excited to get this great technology scaled-up and on the road to market.”

Bolstering the West’s Supply Chain Resilience for Critical Minerals

Western demand for critical battery minerals is set to double over the next decade, driven by electric vehicle adoption and the transition to clean energy. Current supply chains for these minerals are long, dirty and concentrated in areas that do not always share the West’s interests. Onshore recovery of critical minerals from end-of-life batteries, such as what Linca is developing, offers a way for Western OEMs to build some much needed resilience into their supply chains.

Although end-of-life battery volumes lag behind new battery production, by the 2030s significant tonnages will start to be available to process. The first steps of battery recycling produce a mixed material known as "black mass", but the real value is in extracting and refining the critical minerals within such as lithium, nickel and cobalt.  Currently, however, the vast majority of black mass is exported from Western markets, as they possess less than 5% of global refining capacity for these minerals. The current geopolitical importance of supply chain diversification, as well as upcoming regulatory drivers such as recycled mineral mandates (e.g. the EU Batteries Regulation), favour solutions that keep critical minerals onshore.

Onshore refining is the core of Linca’s approach – a modular, capital-efficient black mass refining platform designed for regional deployment. Unlike traditional high-heat smelting methods that require continental-scale logistics, long build times and massive capital expenditure, Linca’s solution aims to economically process smaller volumes of black mass, enabling capacity to scale in line with the growth of battery waste in a given market. A localised approach in collaboration with recyclers, OEMs and industrial partners will also allow for old batteries to be processed safely and efficiently close to where they reach their end of life, avoiding the risks and costs of shipping hazardous battery waste long distances.

Dr. Ollie Crush, co-founder of Mint Innovation and former Chief Scientific Officer, has been appointed CEO of Linca. “Helping keep black mass in Western markets for refining, as opposed to exporting, will bring much needed resilience to critical mineral supply chains,” said Dr. Ollie Crush. “Refining is a bottleneck in the West. Linca is championing an approach that will enable onshore refining of the critical minerals needed for the energy transition.” Mint’s co-founder and former CEO, Dr. Will Barker, will also remain involved as a director on Linca’s board.

‍Traction in the United Kingdom

Prior to the spin-out of Linca, the lithium-ion battery programme secured £8.1 million in consortium backing from Jaguar Land Rover, LiBatt Recycling and WMG at the University of Warwick to demonstrate an onshore, closed-loop battery mineral supply chain in the United Kingdom. Notably, £4.05 million of that total was awarded as grant funding by the UK Department for Business and Trade through the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK, signalling strong alignment of the technology with supply chain sovereignty.

With capital secured from the first close of the seed round as well as the consortium grant, Linca is currently progressing the construction of its demonstration facility for deployment to the UK.

The final $2 million tranche of the seed round will remain open to strategic investors who align with Linca’s vision of onshore, capital-efficient critical mineral recovery.

About Linca

Linca is a critical mineral recovery company focused on extracting lithium, nickel and cobalt from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries. Linca is developing and commercialising a proprietary hydrometallurgical process to refine battery “black mass” in modular, capital-efficient facilities. Designed for regional-scale deployment, Linca’s platform will deliver domestic supply of critical minerals and enable refining capacity to scale alongside the growth of onshore battery recycling ecosystems. The company leads a £8.1 million project consortium with Jaguar Land Rover, LiBatt Recycling, and WMG at the University of Warwick, with a demonstration facility under construction. For more information, visit https://www.linca.co/.