Europe is entering a decisive decade for metals, minerals, and mining.

As electrification accelerates and geopolitical competition intensifies, the continent is being forced to confront a difficult reality: it leads in sustainability standards, research, and industrial capability, yet remains heavily dependent on external suppliers for many of the materials powering the energy transition.

Investors, founders, and technologists across the ecosystem agree that Europe has meaningful advantages, but they also warn that structural vulnerabilities must be addressed quickly if the region hopes to build resilient supply chains.

We caught up with 10 Founders and Investors to hear their perspective and reveal a list of 65 startups in Europe to watch.

Europe’s strength begins with its scientific and industrial foundations.

According to Ahmed Abdelkarim, Co-Founder of Watercycle Technologies (building end-to-end mineral recovery and water treatment systems) the continent combines deep research ecosystems with regulatory credibility that is increasingly valuable in global materials markets.

“Europe’s edge comes from world-leading environmental standards, strong research and innovation ecosystems, and geologically attractive regions in the UK, Nordics and Iberia. Its regulatory credibility and traceability requirements create a premium for responsibly sourced materials that competitors struggle to match.”

Europe’s policy landscape is also beginning to support this ambition. The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) is designed to accelerate domestic production, processing, and recycling of strategic resources.

Ahmed notes that these policies are already encouraging the emergence of new industrial projects.

Beyond regulation, Europe’s industrial ecosystem also creates unique innovation opportunities. Erki Ani, CEO and Co-Founder at Jälle Technologies (upcycling spent lithium-ion battery graphite into a graphene-based materials) points to the continent’s tightly integrated manufacturing base as a powerful testing ground for emerging technologies.

“Europe’s structural edge lies in its comprehensive regulatory framework promoting sustainable practices and a mature industrial and manufacturing ecosystem. Combined, these create a ‘sandbox’ for testing and incorporating early-stage technologies that advance the industry’s level of innovation.”

Fabien Koutchekian, CEO and Co-Founder of Genomines (pioneering genetically enhanced plants for sustainable mining) adds that Europe’s strength lies in the coordination between political institutions, funding mechanisms, and research ecosystems.

“Europe’s structural edge lies in its aligned institutional will and R&D capabilities. The Critical Raw Materials Act and related strategies show clear political alignment and provide ready funding for innovators. Europe is also leveraging raw-materials diplomacy through partnerships with around fifteen countries, while still holding underdeveloped geological resources that could be mobilised with the right investment.”

This proximity between researchers, startups, and large industrial customers can accelerate commercialisation in ways that are harder to replicate elsewhere.

Caroline Thaler, CEO and Founder of Bloomineral (transforming CO₂ into carbon-negative minerals) believes Europe’s scientific depth in materials science, combined with an existing circular materials culture, gives the region a unique foundation to build on.

“Europe’s real strength is its research ecosystem in materials science, combined with an industrial culture around circular materials. Today about 12% of materials used in the EU already come from recycled sources—a good start but far from enough.”

Her company, Bloomineral, builds on that foundation by exploring biological approaches to mineral production. “What we’re doing at Bloomineral builds on that: using biology to produce high-purity minerals from waste, without degrading quality.”

Raffaele Nacchiero, CEO and Co-Founder at AraBat (recycling spent lithium-ion batteries and recovering their precious metals through organic waste) highlights Europe’s long-standing expertise in metallurgy, engineering, and materials science.

“Europe has long-standing expertise in metallurgy and materials chemistry, not to mention plant engineering and automation. European refining processes are typically characterized by stability and very high quality standards, with strong performance in traceability, process control, and sustainability.”

Combined with strong logistics networks and proximity to industries like automotive, aerospace, chemicals, and renewables, Europe remains a global leader in transforming raw materials into advanced products.

Despite these strengths, Europe faces significant structural weaknesses, particularly in the middle of the supply chain.

Ahmed suggests that refining and processing capacity remains the continent’s biggest bottleneck.

“Europe is most exposed in refining, processing, and chemical-conversion capacity, still importing the vast majority of lithium chemicals, rare earth oxides, and battery precursors. Slow permitting and geopolitical dependence deepen the risk.”

Some startups are now attempting to rebuild this capability inside Europe. Dhaarsi Jaksch, Co-Founder and CSO of Magmatic Bio, is developing a bio-based refining process designed to dramatically shrink the size and cost of metal refineries.

“At Magmatic, we develop a bio-refining process that allows for refining battery and technology metals in Europe. By using sustainable protein-based biomaterials, the refining process drastically reduces both size and cost. In the future, refineries could be built across Europe, reducing reliance on China.”

Without domestic capacity to convert raw minerals into usable materials, Europe remains reliant on global supply chains that are increasingly shaped by geopolitical competition.

Investors see the consequences of this gap clearly. Jack Kennendy, Mining and DeepTech Investor at Founders Factory adds that Europe’s biggest challenge is its failure to activate its own mineral resources.

“We’re failing our own targets on exploration and refinement, and still critically dependent on a handful of countries for metals.”

He believes a single policy shift could unlock a wave of domestic development.

“The single most impactful fix would be an EU-wide price floor for domestically mined metals, backed by industry and defence buyers. That alone would unlock 800-plus known deposits sitting untouched.”

Europe’s dependence on external suppliers also introduces geopolitical risk. Raffaele points to the concentration of supply among a small number of countries.

“Geologically, Europe has limited domestic availability of many critical raw materials and rare earths. From a supply-chain perspective, Europe remains dependent on countries such as China, Turkey, Chile, Congo, and others which creates exposure to geopolitical shocks and supply concentration.”

Caroline also points to Europe’s reliance on imported materials as a structural weakness that extends beyond metals.

“Europe remains structurally exposed through its dependence on imported goods and the volatility of energy and raw material prices. For example, the EU imports around €10 billion of non-metallic minerals every year.”

She believes part of the solution lies in producing materials locally through industrial symbiosis. “One way forward is local production through industrial symbiosis: deploying modular systems on industrial brownfields and upcycling cement byproducts into high-value mineral inputs.”

Fabien also points to governance and execution challenges as a major bottleneck.

“Europe remains highly dependent on imports while bureaucracy slows project development. As highlighted by the European Court of Auditors’ Special Report 04/2026, monitoring and prioritization frameworks remain weak, and projects often face public opposition.”

She argues that addressing this will require a more pragmatic approach to industrial policy.

“Europe needs to benchmark progress more rigorously and support strategic projects across the supply chain—even when tradeoffs are required. No project will ever be perfect.”

One of Europe’s most promising solutions may lie not underground, but in waste streams.

Erki believes recycling and circular supply chains could play a central role in reducing dependence on imported resources.

“Europe remains vulnerable due to its dependence on non-EU sources for critical minerals and limited domestic mining capacity. Fragmented supply chains and varying national standards exacerbate these risks.”

The solution, he argues, is investment in circular innovation.

“Europe should invest in recycling, upcycling and circular economy initiatives, driving local sustainable supply, supporting R&D-based innovation, and increasing critical raw material sovereignty.”

Other critical metal startups agree that circular approaches could become one of Europe’s biggest strategic advantages.

Sarah McMullen, CEO of Remephy believes the region already has the foundations to build globally competitive metal recovery and recycling systems.

“Europe is structurally advantaged in how metals are produced, refined and reused. The vulnerability is primary supply and the speed to build new capacity. The opportunity is to turn policy ambition, engineering depth and a circular mindset into globally competitive platforms - in low-carbon production, advanced recycling, and recovery from contaminated land and legacy mining sites.”

Other battery recycling startups argue that Europe’s advantage lies precisely in shifting the centre of gravity of the supply chain away from primary mining.

Sarah Fleisher, Co-Founder and CEO of tozero, says competitiveness lies in building circular supply chains around battery materials.

“Europe’s structural edge in metals and minerals lies less in mining and more in recycling, processing, and circular supply chains. With the EU targeting 25% of critical raw materials to come from recycling by 2030 under the Critical Raw Materials Act, Europe can build shorter, more resilient and lower-carbon supply chains for critical materials.”

She notes that this shift is particularly important for battery materials like lithium and graphite, where Europe currently depends heavily on external suppliers.

“Today over 60% of global lithium refining and more than 90% of battery-grade graphite processing are concentrated in China, while Europe imports nearly all of its natural graphite and most lithium chemicals used in batteries. That creates a major strategic exposure for Europe’s growing battery and EV industries.”

tozero is addressing that gap directly by focusing its recycling technology on the materials most critical to future demand.

“At tozero we recover lithium and graphite first, unlike traditional recycling processes that prioritize nickel and cobalt. That allows recycling to compete directly with primary raw-material supply as demand for these materials accelerates.”

Despite the challenges, investors are increasingly excited about the sector. Jack believes Europe’s talent is beginning to shift into mining and materials innovation.

“Europe’s mining talent pool is thin, but its scientific base isn’t. World-class engineers from automotive, chemicals, and heavy industries are spinning out into this space with Hades from our portfolio as a great example. All of them are building with a dense cluster of potential customers right on their doorstep.”

That proximity between innovators and industrial demand may ultimately become Europe’s most powerful advantage.

Meanwhile Ties Klinkhamer at KEEN Venture Partners points out that Europe’s startups are stepping into a perfect storm of demand:

“The current surge in critical mineral demand is being powered by two forces simultaneously: the industrial electrification boom and the defence-industrial sector, which is rapidly increasing its demand for the same minerals. This convergence is significant because defence procurement behaves differently from traditional commodity markets.”

Europe’s metals and mining sector is at a strategic crossroads. The continent possesses world-class research, strong environmental standards, and deep industrial expertise.

Yet it still lacks the domestic supply chains required to fully support its energy transition.

The coming years will determine whether Europe can convert its scientific leadership and regulatory ambition into real industrial capacity.

Fabien neatly summarises: “Europe should pursue an all-in approach: combining innovation in alternative sourcing such as recycling and phytoextraction, substitution of critical materials, and continued raw-materials diplomacy.”

If it succeeds, these 65 startups (alongside bold policy decisions) could transform Europe from a materials importer into a global leader in sustainable resource supply chains.

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