Porelio Receives 2.4 Million Euros for the Circular Economy

Whether it’s valuable precious metals in industrial wastewater or persistent PFAS chemicals in drinking water, Porelio aims to provide a single technological solution for both problems. To that end, the Potsdam-based deep-tech startup has now closed an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round totaling 2.4 million euros.

The round is led by Portuguese investor Faber. Other participants include Polytechnique Ventures from France, Grupo Tecnológica from Spain, and better ventures from Germany. Through better ventures, business angels Henning Emmrich, Robert Levenhagen, Michal Bartmanski, and Thomas Gottheil are also investing. The company had previously received approximately 2.5 million euros in public funding for the development of its technology.

A Platform for Two Billion-Euro Markets

Instead of developing a separate solution for every industrial challenge, Proelio relies on a common materials platform for various separation processes.

Water quality has become a major societal challenge, and the removal of persistent pollutants is now an urgent environmental and public health issue.

Cécile Tharaud, Founding Partner at Polytechnique Ventures

The focus is on two application areas with significant economic potential. On the one hand, the goal is to efficiently recover valuable precious metals such as gold, platinum, palladium, or rhodium from industrial material streams. Second, Porelio aims to remove so-called PFAS from water. PFAS are long-lasting industrial chemicals that are increasingly being regulated due to their environmental and health risks

Taken together, the company estimates the market potential of both areas at around 34 billion euros.

New Materials for Industrial Separation Processes

The technology is based on so-called functionalized mesoporous silica materials (FOMS), a class of materials capable of selectively binding specific molecules or metals from liquids.

This chemistry had been sitting on lab benches for thirty years. Everyone could see its potential; no one had produced it on the necessary scale.

Dr. Rhea Machado, CEO and co-founder of Porelio

The real innovation, however, lies not in the material itself, but in its production. According to the company, Porelio has developed a continuous production process that can, for the first time, economically manufacture these high-performance materials on an industrial scale.

The process is said to be about 30 times faster than previous production methods while also being more sustainable. In addition, the materials can be regenerated and reused multiple times, which is expected to significantly reduce operating costs.

Significantly Higher Efficiency in Initial Pilot Projects

According to the company, the technology has already demonstrated its effectiveness in several European pilot projects.

For example, palladium recovery is said to be about six times faster than with conventional adsorption processes. The technology also achieved significantly better results than traditional activated carbon filters in removing trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a particularly difficult-to-remove member of the PFAS group.

Porelio addresses a highly relevant need by enabling companies to recover critical metals and treat complex industrial streams much more efficiently. The platform technology has broad potential across multiple sectors.

Rita Sousa, Partner at Faber

This combination of resource recovery and contaminant removal makes the platform attractive to a variety of industries—from chemicals and pharmaceuticals to semiconductors, mining, and water management.

From Pilot Plant to Industrial Production

With the new funding, Porelio aims to take the next step in its development. The plan is to scale up production from the current pilot quantities in the kilogram range to industrial capacities of several metric tons per year.

At the same time, existing pilot projects are to be transitioned into long-term commercial partnerships.

Scientific Founding Team with an International Background

Porelio was founded by Dr. Rhea Machado (CEO), Javier Silva Mora (CTO), and Nikol Michailidou (CPO). The team combines expertise in process engineering, chemistry, and chemical engineering and brings research experience from institutions including the Technical University of Berlin and the École Polytechnique in Paris.

With its platform approach, Porelio simultaneously addresses two of the most pressing challenges facing modern industry: the more efficient use of scarce raw materials and the elimination of long-lasting environmental impacts. If industrial scaling is successful, this could lead to a new generation of separation technologies that combine sustainability with economic viability.