Sortera Alloys receives $10 million in funding to advance end-of-life recycling for automotive metals

Sortera Alloys, Inc. has received $10 million in funding led by Assembly Ventures with additional funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Novelis. Sortera is dedicated to providing a solution for end-of-life circular recycling in the aluminum industry.

Sortera's A.I.-powered technology allows existing streams of mixed alloy aluminum scrap to be separated back into individual alloys. The upgraded metals can then be recycled back into the highest value applications ranging from automotive cast and flat-rolled products to building, construction, and aerospace materials extrusions. The company's scalable production process enables customers to reduce their CO2 footprint and achieve sustainability and circular production goals due to the fact that recycled aluminum requires roughly 95 percent less energy to produce than aluminum produced from virgin raw materials.

"We are thrilled to have this important investment from Assembly, together with additional funds from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Novelis," says Michael Siemer, CEO at Sortera Alloys. "The funding will be used to help scale our operations, grow the team and provide high-quality metal recycling from automobiles."

"Sortera Alloys is a technology-driven start-up that could only be created in the industrial heartland," says Chris Thomas, co-founder and partner at Assembly Ventures. "For decades automotive and manufacturing companies the world over have been working to implement truly circular supply chains. Sortera is poised to power efficiencies in industrial and manufacturing supply chains, and create true circularity of manufacturing inputs, across the Western world."

The funding round follows a significant partnership with Novelis that will see Sortera deliver high-quality, recycled alloy derived from automotive scrap to Novelis, who will remanufacture the material into high recycled content aluminum sheet for the automotive industry.

"The partnership with Sortera will allow Novelis to further increase the recycled content in our products, in particular, our automotive materials," says Derek Prichett, senior vice president of corporate development at Novelis. "This will enable us to meet our own ambitious goals of reducing our carbon footprint, as well as help our customers achieve their own sustainability goals."

Sortera operates from a 10-acre production facility in Fort Wayne, I.N., with plans to expand through the end of 2022. The company's proprietary process recovers and repurposes materials once destined for landfills or to be recycled as low-quality composite products. The resulting high-quality recycled feedstock is cycled back into the $10+ billion U.S. aluminum alloy feedstock market.