Lithium technology developer KMX Technologies said on Monday that Tetra Technologies and venture capital fund PureTerra Ventures have joined its latest funding round and will help it commercially launch products to process the electric vehicle battery metal.
The deal is among the latest in the direct lithium extraction sector, a fast-growing space that has garnered billions of dollars’ worth of investment from investors looking to change how the battery metal is produced.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
KMX’s technology helps concentrate lithium after it is separated from brine during a direct lithium extraction, or DLE, process. KMX, which competes with Veolia and others, is marketing its concentration equipment as one that can be added on to a DLE process to help produce the metal.
The United Kingdom’s Cornish Lithium is among KMX’s customers.
Tetra, which is developing a lithium project in Arkansas with Exxon Mobil, also will help KMX design and build a mobile water treatment system that it will use at its own operations.
As part of the investment, Tetra’s finance chief, Elijio Serrano, and PureTerra partner Alexander Crowell will join the board of Connecticut-based KMX.
The European Investment Fund, which is controlled by the European Union, is one of PureTerra’s investors. Archer Private Investments, a private family office, is also joining the KMX funding round.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; editing by Jonathan Oatis)