Money for metals

Investors are pledging £5m support in the future of a novel electrolytic metals processing method, raising the largest series A financing round for this sector in the last five years.

Metalysis, a metals extraction pioneer, has completed a £5m investment round co-led by Seven Spires Investments and new investors, 3i, along with a syndicate comprising Generics Asset Management, The Coalfields Enterprise Fund and Cambridge Capital Group.

Together with national and European grant money, the round will be used to continue the scale-up and commercialisation of the new metals extraction process.

Metalysis is exploiting the FFC (Fray-Farthing-Cheng) Cambridge process, a novel technique for the extraction of metals from their oxide.

Developed by Professor Derek Fray and his team at Cambridge University, the process works for a wide range of high value metals and offers significant economic and environmental benefits over conventional extraction techniques.

Founded in Cambridge in 2002, the company relocated to South Yorkshire in late 2004 where it is building a production facility for the process. The company is also working to close a number of commercial deals with leading international metals companies to further exploit the process.