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Alta Resource Technologies Raises $5.1M in Seed Funding to Transform Mineral Separation With Advanced Biochemistry
Alta Resource Technologies, a pioneer in using advanced biochemistry to transform mineral separation, announced it has raised $5.1 million in an oversubscribed seed round co-led by DCVC and Voyager Ventures, with participation from Orion Industrial Ventures, Overture, and WovenEarth Ventures.
lta, whose technology uses custom-designed proteins that act like microscopic robots to separate high-purity rare earth elements and other critical minerals with unprecedented selectivity and cost-effectiveness, is poised to dramatically reduce the environmental footprint of mining while expanding access to essential raw materials. As it emerged from stealth mode, Alta also announced that it has secured nearly $1 million in grant funding from the federal government, including the Department of Defense’s DARPA, and the State of Colorado. Earlier funding was provided by Baruch Future Ventures and Climate Capital (now Juniper).
Alta’s advanced biochemistry platform, which leverages technology licensed from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory co-developed with collaborators including researchers at Pennsylvania State University, represents a step-change over existing approaches. The ability to tailor proteins to bind selectively to individual elements greatly expands the scope and scale of what’s possible in mineral separation and processing. With its first products, the company aims to increase supplies of rare earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium – essential for electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, and defense technologies – by cost-effectively separating them from abundant low-grade sources and end-of-life products that cannot be processed using conventional methods.
A New Type of Glass Promises to Cut Glass Manufacturing's Carbon Footprint in Half
The invention, known as LionGlass and engineered by researchers at Penn State, needs considerably less energy to produce and is highly damage-resistant compared to the standard soda lime silicate glass. The research group has filed a patent application as an initial step toward bringing the product to market.
Mauro believes that the enhanced strength of LionGlass means that the products made from it could be lighter in weight. Since LionGlass is 10 times more damage resistant compared to present glass, it could be considerably thinner.