Ascension lands £1.7m seed to trial geothermal leaching for critical minerals
This article covers Ascension, an Oxford University spinout and energy startup, which has raised £1.7m in a seed funding round from UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), Oxford Science Enterprises and East X, including a £670k Innovate UK Growth Catalyst grant. The funding will be used to advance field trials of its technology for recovering critical minerals from underground geothermal systems, a potentially lower-impact alternative to conventional mining that could help diversify domestic supply for clean-energy and defence applications.
Ascension, an Oxford University spinout and energy startup, has raised £1.7 million in a seed funding round from UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), Oxford Science Enterprises and East X, including a £670,000 Innovate UK Growth Catalyst grant. The money, which brings total capital raised to £6.2 million, will be used to advance field trials of its technology for recovering critical minerals from underground geothermal systems — a potentially lower-impact alternative to conventional mining.
Why it matters
Critical minerals such as those used in wind turbines, electric vehicles, semiconductors and defence systems are concentrated in a handful of countries, creating supply-chain and strategic risks for the energy transition. Ascension’s approach aims to unlock local mineral resources using geothermal heat rather than open-pit extraction, which could reduce land disturbance and downstream processing. If it works at scale, the method could diversify supply and lower the environmental footprint of mineral production.
Inside the product
Ascension is developing what it calls a Selective Recovery programme. The process targets metals within volcanic glass in geothermal reservoirs by combining geological mapping, geophysical surveying, reservoir modelling and optimisation of lixiviants — the chemical solutions used to leach metals. The company says this lets it select metals underground and limit surface processing.
Research underpinning the platform has been led by Professor Jon Blundy and Professor Mike Kendall. The current funding is intended to move the work from lab and modelling toward field validation, with the company prioritising demonstrable reservoir performance and extraction efficiency before commercial roll-out.
Who are the investors?
The round was led by UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) with participation from Oxford Science Enterprises and East X, alongside a £670,000 grant from Innovate UK’s Growth Catalyst programme. The £670,000 grant is included in the announced £1.7 million total. Ascension has now raised £6.2 million in total equity and grant funding to date.
UKI2S is a deeptech-focused seed fund targeting university spinouts and early-stage science companies. Oxford Science Enterprises is an investor known for backing research-led spinouts from UK universities. Innovate UK provides non-dilutive grants intended to accelerate development and field trials for technologies with commercial and societal benefit.
In the announcement, Shruti Iyengar, Investment Director at UKI2S, said:
The science is genuinely novel, the team brings rare depth across frontier geoscience and commercial execution, and the opportunity to build real sovereign self-sufficiency in critical materials is one the UK cannot afford to miss.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Motoaki Sumi, Co-founder & CEO, said:
For decades, securing critical minerals has meant digging larger mines, processing more rock and accepting significant environmental damage as the price of progress. That model is outdated. By working with natural geothermal systems rather than against them, Ascension is demonstrating that critical minerals can be recovered with far lower environmental impact. This support from Innovate UK, UKI2S and our co-investors enables us to accelerate development and move towards field validation. Ascension’s technology shows it’s possible to access the minerals modern economies depend on by working with natural geothermal systems, rather than against the environment. The quote outlines the company’s rationale: reduce surface disturbance and leverage geothermal systems to access metals currently tied up in volcanic glass and other subsurface materials.
The bigger picture
Ascension’s funding sits at the intersection of energy security, industrial strategy and green transition policy. The UK and EU have signalled a desire to onshore more of their critical minerals processing and to support technologies that reduce the environmental cost of supply. Innovate UK’s grant and backing from university-focused investors reflect a broader push to commercialise research-led solutions that could reduce dependence on overseas sources.
Field trials will be the key test: moving from lab validation and models to reliable, repeatable extraction in real reservoirs is expensive and technically demanding. If Ascension can demonstrate consistent selective recovery, it will add a novel tool to efforts by policymakers and industry to secure low-impact domestic sources of critical materials for clean-energy technologies and defence.
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