R3 Lithium raises $15M to upgrade Georgia lithium recycling plant
What's the deal? R3 LithiumDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a US company that recovers lithium carbonate from recycled battery materials, has raised $15 million in Series A funding and started operations at its recovery facility in Covington, Georgia. Integral GlobalTech PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, TDK VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Axial PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → participated in the round.
What's the endgame? R3 Lithium plans to use the funding to upgrade the existing lithium carbonate production line at the 154,000-square-foot plant it acquired in July 2026. The company recovers, refines, and returns lithium carbonate to the domestic battery supply chain, using a calciner-based process that extracts lithium from recycled black mass on a single site — without primary mining or overseas refining.
The facility has 30,000 metric tons of battery shredding capacity and a production line rated at 2,500 metric tons of lithium carbonate a year, with space for a second line of equal size. Its line has previously produced lithium carbonate at 99% purity using 100% recycled content at commercial scale.
Why now? R3 Lithium retained the leadership team that ran commercial-scale recycled lithium production at the site in 2025. Its recovered material is intended for energy storage, defence, electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and other markets.
"The US has spent years discussing critical mineral independence while the vast majority of lithium processing has remained overseas," said Linh Austin, chief executive officer at R3 Lithium. "R3 Lithium is here today, with a proven facility that has already produced the product."
The signal: The round lands as energy storage funding cools — VC investment fell 6% year-on-year to $1.6 billion across 51 deals in the first half of 2026, per Mercom. Domestic recycling remains a live theme: Australia's Renewable Metals raised US$7.76M in April 2026 to expand battery recycling.
Read more: mercomindia.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
