Stockholm-based Refinyx, a global critical materials recovery technology company, has launched from stealth with backing from Swedish investment company Qarlbo Energy, alongside its first major US customer signed. The amount of first funding was undisclosed.
The Launch
Founded and led by the senior team behind Northvolt Revolt, the former recycling division of Northvolt, Refinyx provides the technology and engineering industrial operators need to build and run large-scale recovery plants. As part of its launch, the company has acquired the 134-patent technology portfolio and the 13,000-square-foot (1,200-square-meter) materials science pilot and lab facility in Västerås, Sweden, formerly owned by Northvolt.
The Technology
Refinyx’s platform recovers nickel, cobalt, and lithium from batteries and gigafactory waste, industrial residues, and municipal waste streams. The technology has already demonstrated direct battery-grade output at industrial scale, without organic solvents and without the intermediate steps that force most Western recyclers to ship partially refined material to Asia for final upgrading. By eliminating conventional solvent extraction, Refinyx says it can reduce equipment requirements, chemical consumption, waste handling, and plant footprint, while enabling more modular deployment. The company is now expanding the platform to cover rare earths, phosphorus, and other strategic critical materials.
Co-founders Mahmood Alemrajabi (CEO) and Ramiar Vaziri (CTO) developed the technology over eight years at Northvolt Revolt, carrying it through three successive generations and into the first industrial-scale plant built on this process design, in Skellefteå, Sweden.
Alemrajabi explained what the launch represents: “Eight years of R&D and one industrial-scale plant mean the hard part for battery materials recovery is now behind us. The next chapter is deploying this with industrial partners globally and extending the platform to rare earths, phosphorus and other critical materials. The need is becoming increasingly urgent as the U.S., EU and other markets look to build more resilient domestic critical materials supply chains and expand local processing and recycling capacity.”
Dhruv Malhotra, Chief Business Officer and Co-Founder of Refinyx, was blunt about the sector’s structural problem: “A large part of the sector has been building its business case on three premiums the market is not going to pay long-term: a green premium, a government-subsidy premium, and a national-security premium. There is no rescue price coming. We designed Refinyx to compete on cost, quality and reliability — the way industrial companies that built the original metals refining industry competed. That is the only way circular critical materials become a real industry.”
The Business Model
Refinyx is launching at a time when demand for domestic critical materials processing capacity is growing in the US and other major markets. The company’s model is designed to help established industrial operators deploy recovery capacity locally by providing the technology and engineering expertise needed to design, build, and ramp commercial-scale plants — a partnership-based approach rather than operating its own plants directly.
The Investor
Refinyx is backed by Qarlbo Energy, which will take an active ownership role as the company scales to commercial deployment. Qarlbo Energy is owned by EQT founder Conni Jonsson’s investment company Qarlbo, and FAM-owned Thisbe, part of the Wallenberg Foundations’ industrial holdings.
Michel Thomas, CEO of Qarlbo Energy, said: “Access to critical raw materials is increasingly a strategic issue for both industrial competitiveness and the energy transition, and we believe Refinyx is exceptionally well positioned to help address that challenge through scalable recycling technology and deep industrial expertise. We look forward to supporting the company through its next phase of growth and international expansion, with the long-term commitment that kind of scaling requires.”
About Refinyx
Refinyx is a global critical materials recovery technology company headquartered in Stockholm, with R&D and pilot operations in Västerås, Sweden. The company industrializes technology platforms that recover nickel, cobalt, lithium, rare earths, and phosphorus from end-of-life batteries, industrial residues, and municipal waste streams, partnering with industrial operators to design, build, and ramp large-scale facilities.
