Mountain View, Calif. (May 17, 2022) - BMW i Ventures
announced today a lead investment in the Series A-1 financing round of
Mangrove Lithium, a feedstock-flexible modular platform producing
battery-grade lithium hydroxide and carbonate to improve the
sustainability profile of lithium. BMW i Ventures is joined by
existing investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
The company’s electrochemical process eliminates the need for a
carbonate plant, reducing the operating costs and time associated with
first converting feedstock into lithium carbonate. This is essential
to the future of electric vehicles, as a sustainable and scalable
production of lithium is needed to meet the increasing battery demand.
Mangrove’s modular solution can be scaled to any capacity, at point
of extraction or point of manufacturing or recycling, and co-located
with upstream lithium producers or cathode and cell manufacturers.
Allowing for a more diversified allocation of refining capacities worldwide.
Mangrove’s technology is the lowest-energy solution on the market, so
it is not only the least expensive solution, but also the greenest.
Sites with renewable energy sources could nearly eliminate their
carbon footprint, as well as most of the harmful reagents used in
today’s lithium refining.
“We are seeing an increasing need for these types of technologies as
lithium demand increases, and accessibility to green solutions remains
limited today,” said Kasper Sage, Managing Partner at BMW i Ventures.
“Mangrove's core technology offers the
opportunity to fundamentally improve the supply chain of lithium
production unlocking new lithium supply in a more
environmentally-friendly way.”
Mangrove is on a mission to unlock a battery-powered, clean energy
future with improved, bankable access to battery-grade lithium. The
technology provides the best solution to facilitate a resilient supply
chain with its mobile plants, ability to process both chloride and
sulfate feedstocks, and output battery grade lithium hydroxide or
carbonate. This differentiates from other technologies due to its
ability to produce high purity lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate
from a diversity of feedstocks at low energy consumption and high
recovery rates.
“Our vision is to making green lithium refining a reality. Our
modular approach enables us to adapt production capacity in a flexible
way. By eliminating an entire conversion step in the process, we save
cost and energy, making projects feasible that otherwise would not be
financially viable, says Saad Dara, CEO of Mangrove Lithium. “The
ability to cut CapEx and OpEx, will be boosting investment rates of
return and solidifying project bankability.”
The new investment will be used to further accelerate the launch of
Mangrove's first commercial plant.
# # #
About BMW i Ventures
BMW i Ventures is BMW Group’s venture capital firm, investing money
and resources in startups in the fields of Transportation,
Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Sustainability. The firm has made many
successful investments over the years in companies such as Bright
Machines, Blackmore, Chargepoint, Graphcore, Urgent.ly, Proterra,
Solid Power, Tekion, Xometry and many more. BMW i Ventures invests in
all stages from seed to growth with a focus on Series A/B.
About Mangrove Lithium
Mangrove Lithium, a Vancouver based company, has developed a
breakthrough platform for the most cost-effective production of
battery grade lithium hydroxide and carbonate from diverse input
streams and assets. Mangrove’s modular solution can be scaled to any
capacity and co-located with upstream lithium producers or cathode and
cell manufacturers. The platform technology is also being
commercialized for the conversion of waste brines to chemicals and
desalinated water. Visit www.mangrovelithium.com.
# # #
