Lilac Solutions, a lithium extraction company, announced the closing of its $800,000 seed financing round today, with investments from an undisclosed venture capital firm and angel investors.

Lilac has developed unique ion exchange technology for lithium extraction and is working with brine developers to unlock new supplies of lithium across the US and around the world. The company will use the seed funding to prepare for pilot projects designed to produce battery-grade lithium chemicals.

“Lithium prices have nearly tripled since 2015, putting pressure on battery makers to secure long-term supply. This has led lithium brine developers to pursue a variety of new brine resources,” said Dave Snydacker, CEO and founder of Lilac Solutions. “Existing technologies for lithium extraction cannot keep pace with battery manufacturers. We believe Lilac’s technology will solve that problem.”

Conventional technology for lithium extraction from brine resources is based on evaporation ponds; however, these evaporation ponds are expensive to manage, suffer from low lithium recovery, and are generally limited to resources in remote areas of Chile and Argentina. Based on demonstration projects completed in 2017, “Lilac’s ion exchange technology is much faster, much cheaper, and much more scalable than the conventional evaporation pond approach,” said Snydacker.