This August, DTE converted its deployment to a fully operational potroom solution at Emirates Global Aluminum (EGA), the world’s largest “premium aluminum” producer.
DTE’s portable molten metal composition analyzer and data platform for process analytics and insights are now in full operation at EGA’s Jebel Ali site, which has a capacity of 1.000.000 T/year in 1,577 reduction cells. DTE’s solution will enhance EGA’s decision-making ability by giving an instant overview of product quality and trends, providing predictive insights into process efficiency while detecting anomalies and optimizing operational value and control. DTE’s potroom solution is a new benchmark for process control, as it allows its users to optimize tapping schedules, prevent unexpected pot-failures, and eliminate the risk of error by next-to-pot analysis, all while decreasing costs and time spent on maintenance and calibration of traditional analysis instruments. DTE’s solutions offer real-time chemical composition data directly from the melt, reducing the time needed for analysis, allowing for more frequent sampling, and removing bottlenecks associated with composition analysis of solid samples, resulting in faster decision-making.
“We selected DTE’s solutions because we believe its technology will add unique value to EGA’s operations and growth,” says Abdalla Alzarooni, EGA Vice President, Technology Development & Transfer, “we hope to work in a strong partnership with DTE.”
Series A2 financing fuels DTE’s expansion to revolutionize metals production and manufacturing with breakthrough LP-LIBS™ technology
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – Jun 19, 2023
DTE, a leading innovator in decision support for the metals production and manufacturing industry, is pleased to announce the successful completion of a $10 million Series A2 round to further accelerate DTE’s innovation and expand its reach. The raise includes a distinguished group of investors, with participation by aluminum industry leader Novelis, venture capital firm Metaplanet and the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, along with existing investors Chrysalix Venture Capital and Brunnur Ventures.
DTE’s first-in-industry, in-line elemental analysis technology complements and replaces current slow, expensive, and manual methods for process and quality control. Our proprietary LP-LIBS™ sensor technology is uniquely able to deliver reference-grade elemental analysis directly from high-temperature liquid metals in less than 60 seconds from sampling. This breakthrough capability provides enhanced process control and decision support, empowering manufacturers and metals producers with unprecedented insights. From the plant floor to corporate management, our mission is to unlock our customers’ potential to deliver greener, safer, and more efficient products.
“We are delighted to secure this substantial funding round, which is a significant milestone for DTE, validating the transformative potential of our technology,” said Karl Matthiasson, CEO & Founder of DTE. “We are delighted and honored to welcome Novelis, Metaplanet and the EIC Fund as new investors on our journey to transform the metals production and manufacturing industries. The additional capital secured in this funding round finances expansion of our growing sales pipeline and will accelerate our technology and product development capabilities as we continue to push the boundaries of manufacturing decision intelligence and predictive analytics.”
Karl Matthiasson, CEO & Founder, DTE
“As a strategic investor, Novelis recognizes the significant potential of DTE’s LP-LIBS™ technology and the opportunities for its deployment within the metals production, manufacturing and recycling value chain,” said Derek Prichett, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at Novelis “DTE’s solution, with its live elemental analysis capabilities, offers a promising avenue for optimizing production processes and enhancing product quality. In addition to using the technology to support Novelis’ own goals for carbon reduction, which include a 30% reduction by 2026 and net carbon neutrality by 2050 or sooner, we are also excited to aid DTE in their broader mission to help our industry transform towards ever cleaner, more sustainable production.”
“We are impressed by DTE’s unique technology and the potential of their actionable decision support platform to optimize production in the metals industry,” said Marcin Nowak from the EIB, leading the investment on behalf of the EIC Fund. “The EIC Fund is proud to support DTE to create value opportunities as well as streamline and improve efficiencies within the operations of one of Europe’s most energy intensive and emissive industries.”
For more information about DTE and its ground-breaking LP-LIBS™ technology, please visit www.dte.ai
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About DTE
DTE is a leading innovator serving the global metals production and manufacturing industries with powerful real-time and predictive process control intelligence to maximize value, sustainability, safety, and efficiency for all stakeholders.
Composition sampling is critical for process control in metal production, processing and casting, but until now has been manual and mostly empirical, requiring solid samples to be cast from the melt. DTE’s unique, proprietary LP-LIBS™ platform enhances decision support by replacing slow, expensive, manual methods for process and quality control with our first-in-industry contactless elemental analysis solution which delivers reference-grade elemental analysis directly from high-temperature liquid metals in less than 60 seconds.
Novelis Inc. is driven by its purpose of shaping a sustainable world together. We are a global leader in the production of innovative aluminum products and solutions and the world’s largest recycler of aluminum. Our ambition is to be the leading provider of low-carbon, sustainable aluminum solutions and to achieve a fully circular economy by partnering with our suppliers, as well as our customers in the aerospace, automotive, beverage can and specialties industries throughout North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Novelis had net sales of $18.5 billion in fiscal year 2023. Novelis is a subsidiary of Hindalco Industries Limited, an industry leader in aluminum and copper, and the metals flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, a multinational conglomerate based in Mumbai.
Metaplanet is an early-stage investment firm making long-term bets on contrarians and leveraging the knowledge and network across different sectors. We back mission-driven founders working on positively disruptive deep technologies. Based in Tallinn, Estonia, the company has over 150 companies in its portfolio across sectors such as Artificial Intelligence, Biotech, Crypto, Healthcare, and Transportation.
The EIC is Europe’s flagship innovation programme to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and game changing innovations. The European Innovation Council (EIC) has been established under the EU Horizon Europe programme. It has a budget of €10.1 billion to support game changing innovations throughout the lifecycle, from early-stage research to proof of concept, technology transfer, and the financing and scale up of start-ups and SMEs.
The strategy and implementation of the EIC is steered by the EIC Board, which has independent members appointed from the world of innovation (entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, corporates and others from the innovation ecosystem). The EIC takes a pro-active approach to managing funding under the leadership of EIC Programme Managers who develop visions for innovation and technology breakthroughs and steer portfolios of projects to achieve these goals. A unique feature of the EIC is that it provides funding for individual companies through both grants and investments, which currently take the form of direct equity or quasi-equity investments and are managed by the EIC Fund.
Chrysalix is a technology focused venture capital firm that builds, mentors and connects high growth companies. Founded in Vancouver, Canada in 2001, and with offices also in Delft, Netherlands, Chrysalix has built its reputation on bringing disruptive innovation to the world’s largest industries by focusing on where technology meets physical science. The firm’s investments include breakthrough technologies like smart mining, power conversion chips, sensors for process automation and control, fast charging electric vehicle infrastructure, battery intelligence, CO2 capture, wastewater management, and fusion energy. Chrysalix has one of the strongest investment teams in the industry with deep energy, industrial technology and entrepreneurial expertise, and is backed by more than 20 international blue-chip industrial and financial investors. The Chrysalix RoboValley Fund is the firm’s second fund under management focused on industrial innovation.
Brunnur Ventures is venture capital firm based in Iceland focused on seed and early-stage investments, emphasizing innovation and growth, combined with scalable business models and extraordinary entrepreneurial talent. Brunnur Ventures currently manages two funds, Brunnur I and Brunnur II, with fund operation and administration provided by Landsbref, a fund management company licensed by the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority.
This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning the financial condition, results of operations and businesses of DTE (“the Company). All statements other than statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements of future expectations that are based on management’s current expectations and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained or referred to in this section. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this presentation. The information in this presentation is subject to updating, completion, revision, further verification, and amendment without notice and the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information.
In accordance with our policy and commitment to workplace equality DTE is pleased to announce that it as received equal pay verification from Jafnréttisstofa, Iceland’s National Equality Office which handles administration in the field of equality in accordance with the Act on equal status and equal rights of the sexes.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland–DTE, a leader in metals intelligence, is pleased to announce the signature of a $1.85M contract with Nordural Grundartangi ehf, (“Nordural”) a wholly owned subsidiary of Century Aluminium Company (NASDAQ: CENX) in Iceland.
Under the contract, DTE will provide its revolutionary real-time chemical composition analysis solution for the four skimming stations of the new low-carbon billet casthouse. DTE’s solution will monitor the quality of the liquid aluminium transferred from the electrolysis potroom to the furnaces, optimizing the value chain by enabling the correct aluminium quality to be directed to the appropriate furnace based on the final product to be cast. Nordural will benefit from maximizing throughput, minimizing cycle time in the furnaces, minimizing emissions and energy consumption, and removing bottleneck limitations in the casthouse. DTE’s fully autonomous solution avoids the need for manual intervention by plant personnel, contributing to plant safety and reducing analysis costs.
Nordural’s decision was driven by a similar solution under testing in the existing casthouse. Olafur Arnar Fridriksson, Project Manager of the new billet casthouse at Nordural, commented, “We are very pleased to continue working with DTE. We see great potential in the equipment under testing in our current casthouse, so selecting DTE for this project was a straightforward decision. DTE is a strategic partner for Nordural, with their solution being gradually implemented throughout the production process”.
“We are very pleased to continue working with DTE. We see great potential in the equipment under testing in our current casthouse, so selecting DTE for this project was a straightforward decision. DTE is a strategic partner for Nordural, with their solution being gradually implemented throughout the production process”
Diego Areces, CEO of DTE, said, “I’m very thankful and excited for this opportunity, which is a major milestone for DTE. Nordural has been one of our strategic partners and has remained a great supporter of DTE. We look forward to delivering on this commitment and contributing value to the new low-carbon billet casthouse project. In addition, we will continue working together, deploying DTE’s solution along Nordural’s production process to maximize operational efficiency, resilience, and sustainability.”
Nordural’s new value-added casthouse will have a capacity of 150,000 tonnes of billet production and is expected to start production in the first quarter of 2024. The expansion project will also double Grundartangi’s annual capacity to produce primary foundry alloys from its current 60,000 tonnes of capacity to 120,000 tonnes of capacity. This additional billet and primary foundry alloy capacity replaces standard-grade ingot production, raising expected product premiums for Grundartangi products. The $120 million investment is expected to create approximately 90 jobs during construction and approximately 40 permanently.
The new Natur-Al™ billets and foundry products will be produced to meet the growing demand from European customers for low-carbon aluminium products. Grundartangi uses Iceland’s 100% renewable energy resources to create Natur-Al™ aluminium, which has one of the lowest CO₂ footprints in the world. Natur-Al™ billet and foundry products will have less than a quarter of the CO₂ content of the industry average, fulfilling growing demand from Europe’s most environmentally conscious consumers. Natur-Al™ products can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of end products which is necessary for the highly competitive markets for consumer goods, vehicles, packaging, and construction materials.
About DTE
DTE, Unlocking the Future of Metals™, is the leading innovator in real-time intelligence from liquid metals, serving customers across the metals production and manufacturing value chain through maximizing value, sustainability, safety, and efficiency for all stakeholders.
Our purpose is advancing human progress with greener, safer, more efficient, and more valuable metals, contributing to the 1.5-degree challenge while driving digital transformation towards Industry 4.0 with the next generation of IIoT analysis technology. DTE provides tangible financial and environmental business outcomes from the plant floor to the business levels through valuable intelligence and predictive insights from liquid metals.
IREAS™, DTE’s unique, connected, real-time intelligence from liquid metals solution seamlessly integrates IT and OT, combining chemical composition analysis from molten metals based on liquid-phase laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LP-LIBS™) with an artificial intelligence-based analytics platform and digital metals intelligence services.
Nicholas Andruschak has served as a Director of DTE since June 2023.
Nicholas is Vice President at Chrysalix Venture Capital. He is a product driven innovator with more than 10 years’ experience in early-stage product management, R&D and commercializing new sensing and automation technologies in resource intensive heavy industries. Nicholas plays a key role in the development of investment theses, deal sourcing, due diligence, and managing portfolio companies. He is currently focused on investments that enable the automation & digitization, circularity and decarbonization of resource intensive industries.
Nicholas holds a number of board positions and is actively involved with Chrysalix investments in DTE, Sortera Alloys, Luffy, Haila and Applied Impact Robotics. Nicholas has an MBA from the University of British Columbia, an MASc in Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Toronto and a BASc in Mechatronics Engineering from the University of British Columbia.
Arni Blondal
Chairman
Arni Blöndal is a Co-Founder and serves as a managing partner at Brunnur Ventures GP. Arni has two decades experience with start-ups and private equity; as a start-up co-founder, a venture capital fund manager, an investment banker and a fund general partner. He has done transactions and managed private equity/venture capital investments in over 10 countries. Arni has served as board director in numerous start-ups.
He is a mechanical engineer from the University of Iceland and holds a M.Sc. degree in engineering from Denmark’s Technical University.
Clemens Blum
Clemens Blum, is a Director of the Board of DTE, effective from October 22, 2021. He currently serves as Board Member of the Buhler Group, RAFI GmbH & Co. KG and Laird Connectivity. He is also a strategic advisor for Advent International and Oaktree Capital.
Clemens spent over 17 years at Schneider Electric, where he was the Industry Business Unit’s EVP between 2010 and 2016. In this role he led a global organization of over 15,000 people researching, defining, developing, manufacturing, selling and supporting industrial automation products, solutions and services.
Clemens holds a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Furtwangen University, and a Business, Management and Marketing degree from Pforzheim University.
