Nth Cycle said the funding round, led by climate tech venture capital firm Clean Energy Ventures, would enable it to deploy several pilot projects that aim to prove its technology can extract cobalt, nickel, and manganese from used electronics and mine waste.

"Through electro-extraction, we're turning waste into valuable resources and we look forward to bringing this technology to battery recyclers and miners so we can all move together on a path toward a more sustainable planet," said Megan O'Connor, chief executive and founder of Nth Cycle.

Nth Cycle's technology was developed at Harvard University and Yale University, and the company has seen "extensive interest" from battery recyclers, and operators of existing and proposed mines, said the firm.

"We need a sustainable process for recycling and reusing  critical minerals to build a secure, low-cost domestic supply chain for electric vehicles," said Daniel Goldman, managing director at Clean Energy Ventures.

"Separating critical minerals from other metals in the recycling and mining process can be costly and complex", said Daniel Miller, Innovation Crossroads Program Lead at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "A technology like Nth Cycle's reduces the cost, footprint, and environmental impact of producing recycled metals that have exactly the same composition and performance as newly mined minerals."