Altilium announced on October 6, 2026, that strategic shareholders Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM) and Marubeni Corporation have made additional investments as part of the UK battery recycling company’s Series B2 funding round. SQM led Altilium’s earlier $12 million Series A round, while Marubeni joined as an investor in the subsequent Series B round.
The follow-on investment comes after Altilium received £18.5 million in grant funding through the UK government’s DRIVE35 program, delivered by the Advanced Propulsion Centre and Innovate UK. The grant will support the development of ACT 3, which Altilium describes as the UK’s first commercial refinery for recovering critical battery materials from end-of-life electric vehicle batteries.
The planned ACT 3 facility in Plymouth, Devon, will have capacity to process 24,000 EV batteries per year. It is designed to produce battery intermediates including nickel mixed hydroxide precipitate, lithium sulfate and graphite for use in battery manufacturing.
Altilium’s scale-up program has progressed from its ACT 1 bench-scale facility to the ACT 2 pilot plant, which began operating in Plymouth in 2025. ACT 3 represents the next commercial-scale stage. The company is also planning ACT 4, a recycling and cathode active material production facility designed to process scrap from more than 150,000 EVs annually.
Altilium adds funding after £18.5 million ACT 3 grant
SQM and Marubeni joined Altilium’s Series B2 round, reinforcing its staged push toward commercial UK battery-material recycling.
Both capacity rows are neutral: ACT 2 began operations in 2025, while ACT 3 is currently under construction.
According to Altilium, ACT 4 is planned to produce 30,000 metric tons of cathode active material per year, which would be enough to meet more than 20% of the UK’s expected requirements by 2030. The company’s EcoCathode and EcoAnode processes convert end-of-life EV batteries and manufacturing scrap into battery precursors, cathode active material, cathode precursor and anode active material.
The Advanced Propulsion Centre forecasts that annual battery demand from the UK automotive sector will increase from 13 GWh in 2027 to 75 GWh in 2035. Altilium aims to supply part of that demand with domestically recovered materials while reducing reliance on imported raw materials.
Source: altilium.tech
