Oxford's FluoRok raises $30m to break China's grip on a key battery salt

05/11/2026

Abstract illustration of hexagonal molecular rings in teal and blue

FluoRok, a University of Oxford spin-out, has raised $30m (£22.8m) in a Series A led by the venture arm of French nuclear group Orano. It wants to make fluorochemicals, including the lithium-ion electrolyte salt LiPF6, without hydrogen fluoride. Its process has only been shown at pilot scale, and China makes most of the world's supply.

FluoRok, an Oxford chemistry spin-out founded in 2022, has closed an oversubscribed $30m Series A to take a fluorochemical process that avoids hydrogen fluoride (HF) from pilot scale to industrial demonstration, the company said on Thursday. Orano Venture Fund, the venture arm of the French state-controlled nuclear fuel group, led the round with its manager Supernova Invest, according to the company's statement and reporting by Tech Funding News and EU-Startups.

Bidra Innovation Ventures joined as a new investor. Existing backers Oxford Science Enterprises, BGF, Green Generation Fund, Volta Energy Technologies and the University of Oxford all put in more money. The total includes about $1.3m in Innovate UK grant money through its Investor Partnerships programme. FluoRok had already raised $14m in equity and more than $13m in UK and European public funding. Tech Funding News puts total equity raised at about $44m. The valuation was not disclosed.

Why it matters

Almost every lithium-ion battery uses lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6) as its electrolyte salt. China produces roughly 85-90% of it, Tech Funding News reported, citing Fastmarkets. The usual production route depends on HF, one of the most hazardous chemicals in industrial use, and on high-purity fluorspar that also comes mostly from China. Because HF is so dangerous, it is hard to get permits for new plants. That is a large part of why Europe has almost no domestic LiPF6 production while it pours billions into gigafactories.

FluoRok says its mechanochemical process runs on standard equipment and can use lower-grade fluorspar or fluoride recovered from industrial waste. If that works at scale, it could ease the safety problem and the supply problem at once. Orano's involvement also gives the deal a strategic angle. "We back companies whose technologies support a sovereign, sustainable industrial transition," said Florian de Beauchaine, investment manager at Orano Venture Fund, in a statement quoted by Tech Funding News.

The caveats

Investors are paying for a process that has not yet run at scale. FluoRok says it has "completed pilot qualifications" and that more than ten partners in eight countries are validating its products. It has not named any customers or disclosed any volumes. The new money will pay for demonstrator facilities for reagents and battery electrolyte salts. In other words, FluoRok has not yet shown it can manufacture consistently at industrial volume.

The established players are large. Tech Funding News lists China's Do-Fluoride, Tinci and Capchem and South Korea's Foosung as incumbents. Orbia's Koura is building a LiPF6 plant in Louisiana with capacity of up to 10,000 tonnes a year. A start-up building demonstrators will be competing against plants that already produce at that scale.

Policy is working in its favour. The EU's RESourceEU plan commits up to €3bn in 2026 to critical raw materials. FluoRok's European Innovation Council project aims to make it the first EU-based LiPF6 producer, according to Tech Funding News. That goal may be harder to reach from a base in post-Brexit Britain.

Chief executive Gabriele Pupo, a former postdoc in co-founder Professor Véronique Gouverneur's Oxford group, said the funding would let FluoRok "swiftly move from start-up to scale-up". The next thing to watch is where the first demonstrator is built, and whether a European cell maker signs a supply deal with a named volume.