Metalysis raises a further £5.1M for high value metal technology

Funding

Metalysis Ltd has raised a further £5.1 million to scale up its Fray-Farthing-Chen Cambridge Process (FCC Cambridge Process), for the low-cost production of high value metals and alloys. The scale-up will initially focus on the production of tantalum and titanium. All of the company’s current venture capital partners followed on in this round.

“Raising over £5 million in this environment is a significant endorsement of our core technology and the progress that the company has made,” said Mark Bertolini, chief executive of Metalysis.   

Metalysis owns the global rights to the FFC Cambridge Process, discovered at Cambridge University in the late 1990s. When compared to conventional technologies, the process enables a cheaper, less capital intensive and environmentally far more attractive production route to high value metals and alloys.

The Rotherham, UK-based company is already supplying low volumes of metallurgical grade powders and is scaling up its technology to enter both the titanium and tantalum markets more significantly in 2010. These powders are used increasingly in a diverse range of applications for the aerospace, marine, medical, chemical, automotive and electronics industries.

Over the last five years Metalysis has raised £19 million in venture capital and a further £4 million in grants. From a workforce of three in 2005, it now employs 43 people in science and engineering, scale-up and commercial development operations.

The new funding comes from Environmental Technologies Fund along with 3i, Chord Capital, Seven Spires Investments and Cody Gate Ventures. In addition to providing working capital it will primarily be used to support the scale-up of a novel semi-continuous pilot plant.

The FFC Cambridge Process works for a vast range of metals, alloys and carbides with significant economic and environmental benefits over existing processes.