Battery recycling startup R3 Robotics has raised €20 million in new funding to expand its automated electric vehicle dismantling technology, as it broadens its focus beyond battery upcycling to full vehicle disassembly.
The company, originally founded as Circu Li-ion, said the funding includes €14 million from a Series A round led by HG Ventures and Suma Capital, alongside €6 million in European grants.
R3 Robotics has evolved from specialising in lithium-ion battery reuse to developing systems that can automatically dismantle entire electric vehicles, including powertrains, motors and electronics, to recover valuable raw materials.
Antoine Welter said the shift addresses inefficiencies in current recycling processes. “Battery recycling and parts recovery have so far been expensive, labour-intensive, and manual processes,” he told Handelsblatt. He added that the company’s approach is highly differentiated: “On an industrial scale, there is no comparable provider worldwide.”
The startup’s system uses artificial intelligence, computer vision and robotics to automate disassembly tasks, aiming to achieve the consistency required for industrial-scale operations.
R3 Robotics relies on robotic systems from Kuka, and Peter Mohnen, who serves on the company’s advisory board, highlighted the technical complexity of the process. “Automated disassembly at a high level of complexity represents one of the most challenging tasks in industrial robotics,” he said.
Pilot facilities in Karlsruhe, Germany, and Luxembourg are already using the company’s technology. While the current market for end-of-life electric vehicles remains limited, R3 Robotics estimates that more than 250,000 EVs in Europe are ready for decommissioning, with that figure expected to exceed one million by 2030.
Welter said the company is targeting full vehicle recovery. “Our goal is the entire vehicle: battery, motor, every component, automatically dismantled and recovered. That is our massive opportunity,” he said.
The funding will be used to further scale the company’s platform and expand its capabilities as demand for EV recycling solutions grows alongside the electrification of transport.