Cambridge-based climate tech startup Reclinker has raised £10 million in Series A funding to scale its process for turning demolition waste back into cement. The company plans to use the funding to move from industrial trials toward full commercial production at its Cardiff facility.
The Series A round was co-led by Clean Growth Fund and AP Ventures, with participation from the Development Bank of Wales and Kibo Invest, alongside existing investors Zero Carbon Capital and Cambridge Enterprise. According to Reclinker CEO Bill Yost, the round was oversubscribed.
The company's approach tackles cement emissions at the clinker production stage by recovering old cement paste from demolished buildings and processing it in electric arc furnaces already used to recycle scrap steel.
Unlike conventional clinker production, Reclinker's process does not require a traditional cement kiln, quarried limestone or fossil-fuel heat.
Turning demolition waste into new cement
Cement production is one of the major sources of industrial carbon emissions. A significant share of those emissions comes from producing clinker, the key ingredient used to make cement.
Conventional clinker production requires limestone to be heated to extremely high temperatures inside a kiln. The process creates emissions both from the chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide from limestone and from the energy required to heat the kiln.
Reclinker is taking a different route.
The company recovers old cement paste from construction and demolition waste. That material is then processed inside electric arc furnaces, the same type of industrial furnace already used to recycle scrap steel.
The result is a process capable of producing recycled steel and new clinker at the same time.
This means Reclinker can potentially use existing steel-recycling infrastructure rather than building an entirely separate production system for its cement technology.
The company says its process can initially cut cement emissions by 50%, with further reductions expected as the technology scales. The company also says it can produce the material at the same cost as conventional cement.
Those figures have not been independently verified by The Next Web, so the commercial and environmental performance of the process will need to be demonstrated at larger scale.
Cambridge research behind the technology
Reclinker's technology originated from research at the University of Cambridge.
The underlying research was described in a 2024 paper published in Nature, providing the scientific foundation for the company's approach to recovering cement paste and producing new clinker.
Reclinker was founded in 2022 and is led by CEO Bill Yost, alongside co-founders Poppy Brewer and Pippa Horton.
The company's strategy is closely tied to the infrastructure already used by the steel industry. Electric arc furnaces have become an important part of scrap steel recycling, and Reclinker wants to use that same industrial environment to process recovered cement material.
That creates an unusual connection between two major industrial sectors.
Instead of treating demolition waste and steel recycling as separate problems, the company is attempting to connect them through a shared production process.
£10M to move from trials to commercial production
Reclinker has already produced thousands of tonnes of material at 7 Steel UK's facility in Cardiff.
The company has also secured its first commercial sales, an important step as it moves beyond demonstration projects.
The new Series A funding will help Reclinker scale production at its Cardiff operation and establish the technology at additional electric arc furnace sites across Europe and the United States.
The company also expects the expansion to create skilled green jobs in South Wales.
For a climate technology startup working in heavy industry, moving from a successful pilot to commercial production is one of the biggest challenges.
The technology needs to operate reliably at larger volumes, produce consistent material and fit into existing industrial workflows. Customers also need to be confident that the resulting cement material can meet their technical and commercial requirements.
Reclinker's first commercial sales give it an early indication of market demand, but the next stage will show whether the process can scale economically.
A new source of low-carbon cement material
Reclinker is also addressing a potential supply problem within the low-carbon cement market.
Concrete producers have traditionally used blast-furnace slag as a supplementary cementitious material to reduce the amount of conventional clinker required in cement blends.
But as steelmakers shift away from traditional blast furnaces, the availability of blast-furnace slag is expected to decline.
That could create demand for alternative low-carbon cement materials.
Reclinker is positioning recovered demolition waste as one possible source.
Instead of treating old concrete and cement as waste at the end of a building's life, the company wants to recover useful material and put it back into cement production.
That gives the process a circular economy angle as well as a decarbonisation angle.
If successful, buildings that are demolished could provide some of the raw material needed for future construction.
Investors back the next stage
Clean Growth Fund and AP Ventures co-led the £10 million Series A.
The round also included the Development Bank of Wales and Kibo Invest, as well as existing investors Zero Carbon Capital and Cambridge Enterprise.
Stephen Price, investment partner at Clean Growth Fund, described cement as one of the more difficult industrial sectors to decarbonise because its emissions are tied to both process chemistry and energy use.
Gareth Mayhead of the Development Bank of Wales said the investment would help Reclinker establish and grow its presence in Wales.
The funding gives the company capital to continue commercial development while expanding beyond its Cardiff operation.
Reclinker is also supported through the Innovate UK Advance Market Commitment. Large concrete users involved in the initiative have indicated that they intend to use more low-carbon materials over the next five years.
That potential demand could become important as Reclinker increases production.
The wider construction technology market
Reclinker's funding arrives during a period of strong investment across construction technology.
Other companies are using automation and robotics to tackle labour shortages and productivity challenges in construction.
SoftBank invested $225 million in autonomous construction company ASI in September, while Gravis Robotics raised a $200 million Series A led by SoftBank.
Reclinker's technology targets a different part of the construction industry, focusing on the materials that go into buildings rather than the machinery used to construct them.
The common theme is the attempt to modernise an industry that still depends heavily on energy-intensive processes, physical labour and established infrastructure.
For cement, the challenge is particularly difficult because replacing the conventional process requires solutions that can work at industrial scale and compete with a well-established global supply chain.
What comes next for Reclinker?
The immediate priority is Cardiff.
The £10 million Series A will help Reclinker move toward full commercial production at its Welsh facility while expanding the team and industrial operation.
Beyond Cardiff, the company wants to deploy its technology at additional electric arc furnace sites across Europe and the US.
That model could allow Reclinker to expand without relying entirely on new standalone cement plants. If the technology can be integrated into existing steel-recycling facilities, the company could potentially build a distributed network of production sites close to both steel infrastructure and sources of demolition waste.
The bigger test will be whether Reclinker can reproduce the results of its trials consistently at commercial scale.
The company has already produced thousands of tonnes and made its first commercial sales. Now it has £10 million to turn that early progress into a larger production business.
If it succeeds, demolition waste could become more than something to dispose of. It could become part of the raw material supply chain for the next generation of lower-carbon cement.
