US lithium-ion battery recycling company Ascend Elements has secured USD 300 mn in equity and debt financing, it said in a statement. USD 200 mn of the total investment consists of series C equity funding — with investors including the Oman Investment Authority — the statement noted, without giving any information about the size of funding from individual investors or their equity stakes. No further information was provided on the remaining USD 100 mn. Ascend was also recently awarded two grants totaling USD 480 mn from the US Department of Energy.

The series C funding will “accelerate construction” of Ascend’s new EV battery material facility in Kentucky — which it plans to invest up to USD 1 bn. Ascend is targeting production in the new facility of enough of the lithium-ion core materials CAM and pCAM from recycled batteries to equip up to 250k EVs per year, the statement noted.

Who else is investing: The funding round was led by US-based VC fund Fifth Wall — which recently closed a USD 500 mn climate fund — and joined by investors including South Korea’s SK Ecoplant and Mirae Asset Capital, Israel’s Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, Hong Kong-based GLy Capital Management‘s New Mobility Fund, and US-based TD Ventures, Lithium Americas Corporation and Orbia Ventures.

Who are Ascend Elements? The company recycles used lithium-ion batteries by extracting, refining, and selling core materials for new battery manufacture, according to its website. It expects to recycle over 150k metric tons of lithium-ion batteries per year globally by 2026 and is already generating revenue and processing end-of-life batteries at a facility in Georgia that is targeting 30k metric tons of EV battery recycling capacity by the end of 2022, according to the statement.

The trend of GCC investment in western green assets is far from slowing: In recent weeks, we’ve seen an accelerating trend of GCC acquisitions and investment in green assets, from the US to Europe and even Australia. These include investments from the UAE’s Mubadala, GCC-focused alternative asset manager Wafra, Kuwait’s Agility Ventures, and the QIA (here and here).

Lest we forget Uncle Joe’s big EV production plans: US President Joe Biden doled out USD 2.8 bn in grants earlier this month to spur EV manufacturing and domestic mineral production — with Ascend being one of the grant recipients. Biden is targeting 500k new EV charging stations by 2030 and wants 50% of all new vehicles sold by then to be electric or plug-in hybrid electric models, he said at the annual Detroit Auto Show in September.