EQT Foundation Bets €1M on Science to Solve Green Tech's Mineral Crisis

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – June 16, 2026 – The EQT Foundation has launched a strategic assault on one of the green transition’s most pressing vulnerabilities: its deep dependence on a handful of critical minerals. The philanthropic arm of the global investment organization EQT announced today it is awarding more than €1 million in grants to researchers across nine countries who are developing next-generation alternatives designed to secure and decarbonize the world’s clean energy supply chains.

The grants target high-risk, high-impact scientific research aimed at finding radical new ways to source, recycle, and substitute materials like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements. These minerals are the bedrock of modern climate technology—from electric vehicle batteries to wind turbines—but their supply chains are fraught with geopolitical risk, ethical concerns, and environmental damage. The initiative supports 11 research institutions developing solutions that range from extracting lithium from seawater to creating battery chemistries that eschew conflict minerals entirely.

Beyond the Mine: De-risking a Fragile Global Supply Chain

The global push for decarbonization has created a voracious appetite for critical minerals. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional vehicle, and demand for key battery metals is projected to surge dramatically by 2030. This boom has exposed a fragile and highly concentrated supply chain. China, for example, currently dominates the processing of most rare earth elements and other key minerals, creating a significant bottleneck that worries policymakers in Europe and North America.

This concentration poses a substantial risk to the energy transition. Geopolitical tensions or trade disputes could easily disrupt the flow of materials, stalling progress on climate goals. Furthermore, the extraction of these minerals is often tied to severe environmental degradation and human rights abuses, including child labor in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is this complex challenge that the EQT Foundation aims to tackle. By funding early-stage science, the organization is making a long-term bet on innovation as a way to diversify and de-risk these vital resources, moving the world beyond its reliance on conventional, and often problematic, mining operations.

From Seawater Lithium to Earth-Abundant Solar

The cohort of grantees represents a multi-pronged attack on the materials problem. The funded projects are not just seeking incremental improvements but are fundamentally rethinking the material basis of clean technology.

Cilia Holmes Indahl, CEO of EQT Foundation, framed the urgency of this scientific pursuit. "The green transition has a materials problem," she commented. "Too many clean technologies depend on a handful of critical minerals, mined under dangerous, exploitative conditions... Supply chains are fragile, concentrated in too few places, and immature recycling practices mean most of these materials end up in landfill instead of back in the system. The researchers we're backing are working on the hard science to change that."

Among the innovators is Kiana Amini at The University of British Columbia, who is developing an electrochemical platform to recover lithium directly from seawater—a potentially vast and sustainable source—while simultaneously capturing carbon dioxide from the ocean. At the University of Cape Town, Rhiyaad Mohamed is working on ultra-low-iridium electrolyser anodes, a crucial step toward making affordable green hydrogen a scalable reality by reducing reliance on one of the rarest metals on Earth. Other projects include:

• Electrochemical Recycling: Researchers like Xiaochu Wei at Imperial College London and Juchen Guo at the University of California Riverside are pioneering methods to recover high-purity battery materials from end-of-life cells, creating a circular economy for critical resources.
• Bio-Integrated Recovery: At the University of Queensland and ETH Zurich, scientists are leveraging microorganisms to recover lithium and rare earth elements from industrial and urban waste streams, turning pollution into a resource.
• Earth-Abundant Materials: Projects at CSEM in Switzerland and the Technical University of Denmark are focused on designing resource-light solar technologies and scalable manufacturing for electrocatalysts that use abundant materials, reducing bottlenecks in renewable energy production.

A New Blueprint for Accelerating Deep Tech Innovation

EQT Foundation’s strategy extends beyond simply writing checks. The initiative is a prime example of a growing trend in philanthropy: providing catalytic capital to bridge the infamous "valley of death" between academic discovery and commercial viability. This gap exists because early-stage, deep-tech research is often too risky and long-term for traditional venture capital, yet too applied for basic government research grants.

By providing non-dilutive funding, the Foundation enables scientists to pursue high-risk ideas without sacrificing equity in their potential future ventures. Crucially, the program also provides grantees with commercialization support and access to EQT's extensive global network of industry experts, entrepreneurs, and investors. This integrated approach is designed to help entrepreneurial scientists navigate the complex path from lab to market, a model that differs from larger funds like Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which typically invests larger sums in more mature startups.

This hands-on support system aims to de-risk these nascent technologies not just financially but strategically, increasing their chances of attracting the follow-on investment needed to scale. It’s a blueprint for nurturing innovation that recognizes that breakthrough ideas require a robust ecosystem, not just initial funding, to thrive.

The Long Road from Lab to Commercial Reality

While the promise of these technologies is immense, the path to widespread adoption is long and arduous. Transitioning a new material or process from a laboratory proof-of-concept to industrial-scale production can take a decade or more and requires staggering levels of investment. After initial grants, these projects will need to secure seed funding, venture capital for pilot plants, and ultimately, billions in project finance to build commercial facilities.

Industry analysts note that while climate tech investment remains robust, a significant portion of capital is flowing to later-stage, de-risked companies, making early-stage philanthropic funding more critical than ever. Furthermore, regulatory hurdles related to environmental safety and waste management for new chemical processes can be lengthy and complex.

Success for these EQT-backed projects will depend on achieving performance and cost parity with existing technologies while demonstrating long-term durability and safety. The Foundation's investment is not a guarantee of success but a strategic placement of chips on a portfolio of promising futures. By backing the science today, EQT Foundation is planting the seeds for a more resilient, ethical, and sustainable green economy tomorrow.