€11.8m · Other round · Cleantech · Cadoneghe, Italy
Circular Materials has secured €11.8m of SAFE financing to scale its process for recovering critical and strategic metals from industrial wastewater. The Cadoneghe-based company says the round includes CDP Venture Capital, the European Innovation Council Fund, EIT RawMaterials, 360 Capital, Corbites and Lumar.
Scaling recovery where the waste is produced
Founded in 2019, Circular Materials has developed Supercritical Water Precipitation, or SWaP, a patented process that treats complex liquid waste streams while precipitating dissolved metals for reuse. The company says the system recovers more than 99% of dissolved metals and creates less hazardous sludge than conventional treatment. Its first industrial facility near Padua has received End-of-Waste status, allowing recovered material to return to supply chains as secondary raw material.
The capital will support a new Circular Materials Hub in Ferrara, further development of SWaP and a broader move from industrial validation into commercial deployment. Circular Materials says the Ferrara site is intended to lift annual treatment capacity from 3,000 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes.
Circular Materials is trying to turn a compliance cost into two linked industrial outputs: treated wastewater and recovered metal. Manufacturers already generate streams containing nickel, copper, chromium and platinum-group metals, but conventional treatment is designed to remove contaminants rather than preserve their material value. If SWaP can produce consistent secondary inputs at industrial throughput, customers gain a route to reduce disposal burdens while returning some of those metals to productive use.
The hub model makes location part of the commercial system. Building capacity near industrial clusters can shorten the movement of hazardous liquid waste and give Circular Materials a more concentrated supply of feedstock. The challenge is repeatability: wastewater composition varies by plant and process, while downstream buyers need dependable purity, traceability and volume. The new facility therefore has to prove that higher throughput does not weaken recovery quality or unit economics.
Public-backed capital meets an industrial scale-up
The investor group combines venture capital with institutions focused on European materials resilience. Circular Materials’ Recover-IT project was designated a Strategic Project under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act in 2025. That status supports the strategic case for recovering metals inside Europe, but commercial proof will come from operating performance, qualified output and recurring customer demand.
The €11.8m round finances that next proof point. A larger hub can show whether the company’s modular process travels beyond one validated plant and whether recovered metals can become a reliable supply stream rather than an occasional by-product.
Sources checked:
Circular Materials announcement · Circular Materials company site · Tech.eu · EU-Startups · Tech.eu Funding Explorer
