How a Bill Gates–backed Delta startup aims to transform lithium refining

When Saad Dara was doing his PhD in chemical and biological engineering at UBC, he didn’t want to emerge with only a degree: he wanted a commercially viable company.

Dara and his collaborators had developed a groundbreaking electrochemical process to desalinate water, but as they began talking with players in the industry, they soon realized the same environmentally friendly tech could also be used to refine lithium—a key component in EV batteries, and one that comes with far higher market value. As a result, his fledgling company shifted its focus—but whatever you do, don’t call it a pivot.

“We don’t use the word ‘pivot.’ We use the words ‘product-market fit,’” says Dara, now CEO of Delta-based Mangrove Lithium, with a laugh. “If I’m doing the same amount of work and I’m going to generate 20 times more value, I should obviously apply the technology to that.”

And he has. Now roughly five years out from that “product-market fit,” Mangrove has drawn the backing of Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BMW i Ventures, Mitsubishi Corporation and BDC Capital, to name a few. The company opened its first production facility in December 2025 and expects to begin operations in early 2026; the aim is to ship its first battery-grade chemicals in May. The B.C. plant, which is intended to prove out the tech at an industrial scale, will be able to produce 1,000 tonnes of lithium per year, which could power up to 25,000 EVs.

Following a $35-million (U.S.) funding round—with a total of $60 million raised to date—the company also announced plans to build a new facility in Eastern Canada that will produce 20,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium per year. That’s enough to power over 500,000 electric vehicles.

Traditional lithium refining relies on costly chemicals that can introduce impurities and generate waste. By contrast, Mangrove’s technology uses electrolysis that dramatically reduces waste and environmental harm while eliminating chemicals and impurities and bringing down costs. If plants are powered by energy grids using renewable energy, both costs and emissions are reduced even further.

“The main input is electricity, so the cost of electricity is a big driver,” says Dara. “Renewable power is becoming cheaper and cheaper. It’s already lower than fossil fuels—and if that trend continues, electricity prices will come down, and electricity-based processes will automatically have a significant advantage… So that’s where our focus is.”

Justin Bull, a lecturer at UBC Sauder School of Business, says one of the most compelling things about Mangrove is that they are “feedstock agnostic”—that is, they can refine lithium from brine, hard rock and even used batteries. “As we see an increase in the supply of used batteries, we are going to need solutions around taking old waste and recycling it in interesting ways,” he says. “And this represents one of those solutions.”

Still, the venture is facing some headwinds, says Bull. For one, Mangrove will be up against well-established industrial giants with better access to markets and capital. “Being a disruptor in this space means that you can’t just be a little bit better. It has to be a lot better and a lot cheaper and a lot closer to your end customer,” he explains. Political tensions and anti-EV sentiment in North America have also slowed demand.

Canada has many of the right inputs for the battery supply chain, but, as Bull puts it, “we haven’t been able to stand anything up with speed and scale.” Mangrove still needs to prove that it can effectively scale to a larger industrial level, he says, but if it does, it could be a gamechanger.

“Any time a technology can come along and be feedstock agnostic, and do something that’s both better and cheaper, it’s a disruptor,” Bull says. “And when you see a disruptor come along with a different business model, it’s pretty exciting.”

David Wilkinson, professor emeritus of chemical and biological engineering at UBC, was a co-founder of Mangrove along with Dara, Chrysalix Venture Capital’s Alfred Lam and UBC adjunct professor Arman Bonakdarpour. He remembers when the group first started getting results on a tiny scale—just five square centimetres—and realized its potential in a host of applications. “It was a very, very exciting time,” he says.

Currently, the lion’s share of lithium is refined in China, but export restrictions and heightened trade tensions could disrupt that supply. Having the ability to produce lithium at scale in Canada, or anywhere there is a supply—including urban settings where there’s a growing stock of those used batteries—provides a distinct competitive advantage, says Wilkinson.

“It’s very important for Canada to have this capability. Otherwise we just become a resource extraction country that loses most of the margin and profit, like we have done with many things—the forest industry, oil and gas,” he says. “Whether or not we produce gigafactories for batteries, just being able to ship a refined product will give us a much greater advantage, and won’t put us in a problem state like we have with the U.S.”

Others have tried similar technologies and processes, but Mangrove is the furthest ahead in terms of scale, says Dara. As he puts it, “We stand on the shoulder of giants.” In the long run, he says, the company’s mission is to “define a new industry standard in lithium processing,” noting that the smaller-scale B.C. plant represents a major step in that direction.

“After that, it’s really about doing it at a scale, where the next time people think about building a lithium plant they say, ‘Hey, we should just do that because it’s already been done and it’s proven,’” says Dara. “And when people think about electrochemical lithium processing and refining, their first thought is, ‘Mangrove, did that. We should do that.’”