Caterpillar invests in metal recycling startup Nth Cycle

Caterpillar, a global leader in construction and mining equipment, has joined a group of investors to back Nth Cycle, a Massachusetts-based startup that has developed a novel metal refining technology.

The startup raised $44 million in Series B and non-dilutive financing to scale up its operations and expand its market reach.

Nth Cycle’s technology, called “The Oyster”, is a modular system that uses electrochemistry, chemical precipitation and filtration to extract metals from various feedstocks, such as scrap, black mass, primary ore concentrates, and waste streams.

The system is said to be more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly than the conventional smelting process, and can produce metal and metal salts for resale.

Caterpillar’s Senior Vice President of Electrification and Energy Solutions, Rod Shurman, said that the collaboration with Nth Cycle supports the company’s commitment to helping its customers achieve their climate-related objectives and establishing a circular value chain.

He added that Nth Cycle’s technology can help get valuable materials back into the supply chain.

Nth Cycle was founded in 2020 and received its initial seed financing in 2021. It commercially deployed its systems in 2022 and recently announced that it was set to become the first company in the United States to offer a domestic nickel mixed hydroxide product (Ni MHP), which is a critical metal for the growth of electrification infrastructure.

Nth Cycle’s CEO and Co-Founder, Megan O’Connor, PhD, said that refining has long been the obstacle to a broader sustainable and closed-loop metal supply chain in the U.S. and EU, which is why the startup set out to solve that problem, while offering a complementary solution for recyclers.

She said that the startup has grown out of the lab and into a commercial facility with new deployments of its modular units in the near future, and that building critical relationships with its investors, partners and policymakers has been a key part of its rapid growth to scale.