Portfolio company R3 Robotics (formerly Circu Li-ion) has raised €14 million in Series A funding, co-led by HG Ventures and Suma Capital, with participation from Oetker Collection, the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), and existing shareholders including BonVenture, FlixFounders, and EIT Urban Mobility, alongside €6 million in European grants.
The funding coincides with the company’s rebranding from Circu Li-ion to R3 Robotics and a clear expansion of scope: from battery disassembly to automated dismantling of complete electric vehicle systems, including e-drives, power electronics, and other high-value components. The long-term ambition is to enable fully automated disassembly across entire vehicle systems. The new name reflects the company’s industrial focus – Repair, Reuse, Recycle – powered by robotics.
Johannes Kirschner, Investment and Portfolio Manager at EIT Urban Mobility, stated: “R3 Robotics exemplifies the kind of innovation that drives systemic impact. They combine technical excellence with a clear mission to make Europe’s battery ecosystem circular and sustainable.”
Industrial disassembly at scale
As electrification accelerates across mobility and energy systems, end-of-life volumes of complex electrified components are expected to increase sharply. Manual disassembly remains labor-intensive, costly, and difficult to scale safely. R3 Robotics addresses this challenge with a dismantling platform designed for repeatable, high-throughput operation in continuous industrial environments.
European policy reinforces this shift. The Critical Raw Materials Act underscores the need to strengthen secure and resilient domestic supply chains for strategic materials. In parallel, the EU Battery Regulation introduces progressively stricter recycling efficiency targets, including a 70% target for lithium-based batteries by 2030, alongside material recovery and recycled content requirements. Together with the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive, these frameworks are reshaping industrial recycling infrastructure.
“The bottleneck isn’t recycling technology; it’s clean feedstock, meaning getting complex electrified systems safely and cost-effectively dismantled at an industrial scale,” said Antoine Welter, CEO and co-founder of R3 Robotics. “We’re building a dismantling platform that turns end-of-life systems into a strategic source of critical materials and reusable components for advanced industrial economies.”
Strategic partnerships with recyclers and automotive OEMs
R3 Robotics’ dismantling platform combines computer vision, AI, and specialised robotic tooling to automate the disassembly of lithium-ion battery packs, e-motors, power electronics, and other high-value electrified components. The system minimises human exposure to high-voltage hazards and delivers the cost structure and reliability required for industrial-scale operations.
The company is working with Fortum Battery Recycling, a major integrated battery recycler active across multiple stages of the European battery recycling value chain, from collection and pre-treatment to material refining, to deploy its automated dismantling technology at industrial scale. Beyond its work with recycling partners, R3 Robotics works directly with automotive OEM customers, processing end-of-life battery systems through its centralised dismantling infrastructure to recover critical raw materials and support secure sourcing.
The Series A financing and additional European grants will support:
- Technology and team expansion: strategic hiring across engineering, AI, software, and operations
- European market scale-up: system deployments with industrial recyclers and automotive partners
- Facility scale-up: increased capacity in Karlsruhe and Luxembourg
- U.S. market entry: commercial preparations and strategic partnerships for roll-out in 2026
Read more about the impact of R3 Robotics in our 2025 Impact Report.
