Currently, only 40% of EV batteries undergo some form of recycling, with the remaining 60% winding up in landfills. Existing recycling methods are highly inefficient and fail to recycle the black mass, which are the materials of the anode and cathode of the battery. tozero has developed a novel way of recycling Lithium-Ion Batteries (LiBs) based on the CTO’s years of research and development experience at RWTH Aachen’s Institute for Process Metallurgy and Metal Recycling (IME). Through a proprietary process of hydrometallurgy or chemical leaching, tozero is able to recycle up to 97% of the Black Mass in LiBs and for the first time recover the valuable Lithium. After having conducted over 70 successful tests in a laboratory setting, tozero is now focusing on scaling its process, with the ambitious goal of building its first commercial-size plant with a 30k tonnes capacity by 2030.
Location: Germany, Bavaria, Munich
Total raised: $5.08M
Founders name: Ksenija Milicevic Neumann; Sarah Fleischer
Investors 3
| Date | Name | Website |
| 13.10.2022 | Atlantic L... | atlanticla... |
| - | Verve Vent... | verve.vc |
| 12.05.2023 | RESPOND Ac... | respond-ac... |
Funding Rounds 1
| Date | Series | Amount | Investors |
| 09.09.2022 | - | $5.08M | - |
Persons 7
| Date | First Name | Last Name | Title | Location | |||
| - | Matthieu | Faustin | Business O... | linkedin.c... | - | m******u@t... | - |
| - | Sarah | Fleischer | Co-Founder... | linkedin.c... | - | S***h@toze... | - |
| - | Sachin | Samarakone | Hydrometal... | linkedin.c... | - | s****n@toz... | - |
| - | Ksenija | Milicevic ... | Co-founder... | linkedin.c... | - | k*****a@to... | - |
| - | Sabareesh | Gopalakris... | Plant Oper... | linkedin.c... | - | s*******h@... | - |
| - | Tim | Zinkl | - | linkedin.c... | - | t*m@tozero... | - |
| - | Lennart | Morlock | Mechanical... | linkedin.c... | - | l*****t@to... | - |
Mentions in press and media 5
| Date | Title | Description | Source |
| 03.11.2022 | 8 neue Startups: aborise, Eterno, comstruct, Gibbi, Torg, De... | deutsche-startups.de präsentiert heute wieder einmal einige junge Startups, die zuletzt, also in den... | deutsche-s... |
| 09.09.2022 | Tozero raises €3.5 million in funding | Munich-based startup Tozero, which specializes in recycling lithium-ion batteries, has raised €3.5 m... | electrive.... |
| 07.09.2022 | Munich’s climate tech startup tozero charges with €3.5 milli... | Lithium-ion batteries are crucial to enable decarbonisation efforts and will be used to electrify mo... | tech.eu/20... |
| 06.09.2022 | Just outside of Munich, a startup plans a new process to rec... | Companies like Redwood Materials (raised $792M), Li-Cycle, (Canada, raised $667.7M) and Green Li-ion... | techcrunch... |
| - | tozero | “Truly bringing lithium-ion battery waste tozero by recovering all critical matierlas, like lithium,... | fastfounde... |