Princeton Critical Minerals Raises $16M to Scale Lithium Production for Energy Storage

SOSV portfolio company, Princeton Critical Minerals, spoke to Axios following the announcement of its $16 million raise in combined equity and non-dilutive funding, including an $11 million Series A led by SOSV, plus grants from the National Science Foundation, ARPA-E, and NJEDA, to scale lithium production from brine.

Their technology plugs directly into evaporation ponds operators already run, rather than requiring new ponds or processing infrastructure. Evaporation enhancement, AI-enabled pond monitoring, and selective crystallization work together to pull more lithium out of the same brine. The result is higher output without the capital cost or multi-year buildout that conventional operations require.

Princeton Critical Minerals spun out of Princeton University and recently took its Lilypad™ system from pilot to industrial-scale deployment in Chile. It's now preparing its first commercial rollouts in the U.S.

Lithium demand is no longer driven by EVs alone. Battery storage, AI data centers, and broader electrification are pulling on the same supply chain. Princeton Critical Minerals is betting that its approach, plugging into operations that already exist instead of building new ones, will be key to unlocking the next phase of critical lithium production.