Published: December 7, 2023 |

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TechMet, a global critical minerals investment company, has secured a further $50 million commitment from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) as part of its latest fundraising round.

A ceremonial signing of the commitment letter for the extra $50 million equity investment in TechMet took place with the DFC’s CEO Scott Nathan on Sunday December 3, at COP28.

The additional commitment from the U.S. government’s development finance institution comes as TechMet opens a new $300 million equity funding round. The company now has a value of over $1 billion.

DFC is already a key shareholder in TechMet and this will raise its total investment to $105 million, following an initial investment in 2020.

TechMet, founded in 2017, is an investment company focused on building businesses across the critical metals value chain, from extraction and processing to recycling and supply-chain management.

“The signing of the additional funding commitment from the DFC signals the growing appreciation of the imperative to ramp up critical metals supply chains if the world is to move away from fossil fuels and achieve its climate change goals,” said TechMet Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Brian Menell.

“The U.S. government backing puts TechMet at the forefront of this global effort to responsibly scale production of these metals, which are essential for clean energy technologies such as EVs and renewable energy storage,” added Menell.

“We are grateful to all of our investors and shareholders — current and future — as we deliver on our mission to build environmentally and socially responsible supply chains needed for the electric vehicle revolution, and the clean energy transition,” concluded Menell.

During 2022 and 2023, TechMet has invested more than $250 million into critical metals projects across North and South America, Europe, and Africa.

“Today’s announcement builds upon existing DFC support for TechMet to develop more diverse, resilient, and sustainable critical mineral supply chains. DFC’s investment, at the same time, supports the transition to clean energy technology while growing economic opportunity and upholding high labor and environmental standards,” said Scott Nathan, DFC CEO.

TechMet will use this latest tranche of DFC backing to exercise the company’s option to deploy $50 million directly into the Phalaborwa Rare Earths project in South Africa. Phalaborwa is being developed by Rainbow Rare Earths.

TechMet became the primary funder of Rainbow Rare Earths during the feasibility phase of the Phalaborwa project.

Over the past eight months, and with strong focus on the environmental benefits, TechMet and DFC have been working together to assess the Phalaborwa project, which uses a U.S. extraction technology to reprocess historic phosphate mining waste dumps to produce rare earth metals.

In August, TechMet, the UK Infrastructure Bank, and The Energy & Minerals Group announced a landmark $67 million investment in Cornish Lithium to develop a U.K. supply of lithium for EV battery production and battery storage solutions.

Earlier in the year, TechMet closed its previous $200 million equity investment round with the funds deployed across its existing portfolio of assets including Rainbow, Brazilian Nickel, U.S. Vanadium, TechMet-Mercuria, REEtec, Xerion Advanced Battery Corp., Energy Source Minerals, Momentum Technologies, and Trinity Metals — which are all building extraction, processing, recycling, and manufacturing capacity.

In that funding round, London-based Lansdowne Partners increased its investment, and was joined by a number of significant new investors including U.S.-based S2G Ventures, the direct investment team of Builders Vision, which is expected to follow their interest in the new round making them one of the largest backers of TechMet alongside DFC.

Menell, who has a long history in metals mining, has become one of the world’s leading voices on the urgent need to build and diversify critical metals supply chains.

TechMet Limited is a leading technology metals investment company with a portfolio of assets that responsibly produce, process, and recycle the metals that are critical to the global energy transition and the electric vehicle revolution. Current assets in the TechMet portfolio include lithium extraction from both brine and hard rock sources, nickel, and cobalt hydroxide production from laterite ores, vanadium chemical production from industrial waste feedstocks, rare earth production and processing, tin and tungsten mining, lithium-ion battery recycling, and high-performance cathode manufacturing. TechMet’s major shareholders include the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the global energy and commodity group Mercuria.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is the U.S. government’s development finance institution. DFC partners with the private sector to finance solutions to the most critical challenges facing the developing world today. They invest across sectors including energy, healthcare, infrastructure, agriculture, and small business and financial services. DFC investments adhere to high standards and respect the environment, human rights, and worker rights.

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