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Cornish Lithium
Environmentally responsible UK lithium extraction from geothermal waters
About Cornish Lithium
Cornish Lithium is a mineral exploration and development company founded by Jeremy Wrathall in 2016, focused on creating a domestic supply of lithium for the United Kingdom. Wrathall, a graduate of the Camborne School of Mines with over 30 years of experience in mining and finance, was inspired by historical records from 1864 detailing high concentrations of lithium in Cornwall's geothermal waters.
The company is developing projects to extract lithium from two main sources: geothermal waters and hard rock. Its geothermal projects, such as the one at Cross Lanes near Chacewater, involve drilling deep wells to extract hot, lithium-rich brine. The firm then uses Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology to separate the lithium before reinjecting the water, a process with a lower environmental footprint than traditional methods. In March 2025, the company received planning permission to build the UK's first commercial geothermal lithium production facility. Its hard rock operations, like the Trelavour Project near St Dennis, are based in former china clay pits. Here, lithium-bearing granite is processed to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide.
Cornish Lithium serves the growing market for electric vehicle (EV) batteries and large-scale energy storage, aiming to reduce the UK's reliance on imported lithium. The business model is centered on exploration, development, and eventual production and sale of lithium compounds. The company has secured significant funding to advance its projects toward commercial production. In August 2023, it received an initial investment of £53.6 million ($67 million) led by the UK Infrastructure Bank, The Energy & Minerals Group, and existing shareholder TechMet. This was followed by a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised a further £5.1 million. In June 2025, Jamie Airnes was appointed CEO to lead the company's transition from R&D to full-scale operations, with founder Jeremy Wrathall moving to the role of Executive Chairman to oversee strategy.
Source: Dealroom company dataAt a glance
- Status
- Operational
- Founded
- 2016
- Headquarters
- Penryn, United Kingdom
- Employees
- 102
- Open positions
- None listed
- Dealroom signal
- 68.8/100
- Sub-industry
- Energy Storage
- Sector
- Energy, Mining Technologies, Sustainable Development Goals, Climate Tech, Lithium Mining, FBC Funded, NIF defense security and resilience, NIF materials and manufacturing, NIF Supply Chain Resilience, DT and LS
- Technology
- Hardware, Deep Tech
- Business model
- Manufacturing
- Client focus
- b2b
- Investment activity
- 1 company
- Capital deployed
- —
- Preferred round
- Unknown
Knowledge graph
More headlines
Funding history
Company financing events and reported valuations.
| Deal type | Date | Amount | Valuation | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRANTOther financing | Sep 2025 | $41M | — | National Wealth Fund | ↗ |
| LATE VCOther financing | Jul 2025 | $23M | $191M | Crowdcube | ↗ |
Financials
Revenue, earnings and other financial measures where available. Years marked “E” are estimates.
Growth signals
Latest recorded traffic for Cornish Lithium is 3.8K monthly website visits, up 2.7% over the last three months. Cornish Lithium's team declined 1% over the past year.
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Investments and acquisitions
Recent portfolio relationships for companies that also act as investors or acquirers.
Investors
From Dealroom's funding and investor records, grouped by the round each investor first entered.
Seed4 investors entered at this stage
UK Research and Innovation
Crowdcube
Government of the United Kingdom
Advanced Propulsion Centre UK
Series A1 investor entered at this stage
TechMet
Series B and later3 investors entered at this stage
U.S. International Development Finance Corporation- EGEnergy & Minerals Group
National Wealth Fund
Source: Dealroom Talent Intelligence.
Global footprint
team presence
Market sentiment
An AI-synthesised read of the highest-engagement posts about Cornish Lithium on X, ranked by likes and reposts, corporate channels excluded.
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Source: X recent search ranked by engagement (likes + retweets) · Synthesis by Claude · Cached for 1 hour
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