Ascension, an Oxford University spinout developing geothermal alternatives to conventional rare earth mining, has secured £1.7 million in funding from UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), Oxford Science Enterprises and East X, including a £670,000 Innovate UK Growth Catalyst grant. The funding brings total capital raised to £6.2 million and supports development of its underground critical mineral recovery technology.
It is advancing its Selective Recovery programme, which enables targeted metal selection underground and reduces the need for processing at the surface. Critical minerals are essential to wind turbines, electric vehicles, semiconductors and defence systems, but global supply is concentrated in a small number of regions. Ascension addresses this by recovering minerals from volcanic glass using geothermal heat and environmentally safe solutions, avoiding excavation and reducing land disturbance.
The technology builds on capabilities across geological mapping, geophysical surveying, reservoir modelling and lixiviant optimisation. Research underpinning the platform has been led by Professor Jon Blundy and Professor Mike Kendall. The funding supports progress towards field trials as Ascension works to scale geothermal mineral recovery as an alternative to conventional mining.
Critical mineral supply is one of the great chokepoints of the energy transition - and competing for the same finite deposits is a race to the bottom. Ascension is asking a different question entirely. By combining geothermal heat with new geoscience, the team is unlocking mineral resources that have sat beyond the reach of conventional methods - and extracting them without the destructive footprint the industry is known for. We backed them because the science is genuinely novel, the team brings rare depth across frontier geoscience and commercial execution, and the opportunity to build real sovereign self-sufficiency in critical materials is one the UK cannot afford to miss.
For decades, securing critical minerals has meant digging larger mines, processing more rock and accepting significant environmental damage as the price of progress. That model is outdated. By working with natural geothermal systems rather than against them, Ascension is demonstrating that critical minerals can be recovered with far lower environmental impact. This support from Innovate UK, UKI2S and our co-investors enables us to accelerate development and move towards field validation. Ascension’s technology shows it’s possible to access the minerals modern economies depend on by working with natural geothermal systems, rather than against the environment.
