Luxembourg startups Circu Li-ion and Uplift360, both founded in 2021, have announced separate fundraising milestones to scale their operations.
Circu Li-ion rebrands and raises €20 million
Luxembourg battery recycling company Circu Li-ion recently rebranded as R3 Robotics and raised €20 million to industrialise automated disassembly.
R3 Robotics announced that it closed €20 million in combined financing, including a €14 million Series A round co-led by HG Ventures and Suma Capital and €6 million in European grants, to scale AI-powered robotic disassembly of electric vehicle (EV) systems.
As EV volumes accelerate, end-of-life dismantling has become a critical industrial bottleneck, according to the company, which noted that manual processes cannot scale safely or economically. R3 Robotics aims to address this challenge with robotic platforms designed for repeatable, high-throughput disassembly across the entire EV system, from batteries to e-drives and power electronics.
This milestone also marked the company's rebrand from Circu Li-ion to R3 Robotics, reflecting its mission to transform end-of-life EV systems into a strategic source of critical materials and reusable components through repair, reuse and recycling.
Looking ahead, the company said it plans to scale deployments across Europe, expand its lighthouse facility in Karlsruhe (Germany) and prepare for entry into the US market.
Uplift360 closes €7.4 million seed round
Luxembourg cleantech company Uplift360 announced that it closed a €7.4 million oversubscribed seed round aimed at strengthening European supply chains through advanced material regeneration.
Extantia led the round, with significant contributions from the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Promus Ventures and Fund F. The funding is expected to support new partnerships with major industry players and an expanded scale of production.
With the new capital, Uplift360 said it plans to commission its first pilot-scale processing line in the UK, expand partnerships with aerospace, defence automotive and energy original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), accelerate research and development into regenerated-fibre performance and new applications, and lay the foundations for a distributed European model for composite circularity.
