Scimplify raises $25M to speed up critical materials production with AI

Indian startup Scimplify has raised $25M led by Hitachi Ventures to supply specialty chemicals and critical materials outside China, with German customer Henkel joining as an investor. The new production network is going to the US and Japan, not Europe.

Scimplify has raised $25M to supply specialty chemicals and critical materials from outside China. German money is in the round, and none of the new capacity is going to Europe.

Hitachi Ventures led the all-equity round, with customers Henkel and Teknor Apex joining as investors, TechCrunch reported. Accel India, Bertelsmann India Investments, Omnivore and 3one4 Capital returned.

Total equity funding reaches $80M. A person familiar put the post-money valuation at $250M, up from $150M after a $40M round in March 2025. The company would not confirm it.

About 90% of its manufacturing is in India. It will extend the network to the US and Japan over the next year, with $7.5M of the new money for the US.

Europe is in the round but not the plan. Henkel is German, BASF is a customer, and China supplies more than 90% of the EU’s rare earths.

The materials it is chasing are the ones Brussels has named. Tungsten and magnet rare earths are strategic raw materials under the Critical Raw Materials Act, which caps any single non-EU supplier at 65% by 2030.

The squeeze works through paperwork, not bans. China slowed export licences for indium phosphide from early 2025, and a six-inch wafer went from $1,400 to about $5,000.

Scimplify’s pitch is speed. Co-founder Sachin Santhosh says it has gone from a customer requirement to delivered material in two months, against the usual 12 to 18.

Europe runs the same trade smaller. Munich’s Tozero raised €11M in 2024 to recover lithium and graphite from shredded battery waste.

Demand and revenue have both moved fast, on Santhosh’s account. Energy, electronics and defence are now 45% to 50% of revenue, from under 15% a year ago. He puts the annualised run rate at about $200M, triple a year earlier, with the US sixfold to about $60M.

Brussels is writing local content rules of its own. Its proposed Industrial Accelerator Act starts at 5% Union-origin content for concrete and 25% for aluminium, and its sector scope reaches chemicals.

The arithmetic is worth a look. A $250M valuation on a claimed $200M run rate is 1.25 times revenue, which is what manufacturing earns rather than software.

Its next targets are the exposed ones. It is working on tungsten derivatives from scrap and on rare earth materials, the category Beijing has used as leverage all year.

I am the Editor in Chief for TNW, covering technology not as a parade of launches and valuations, but as a system of influence, persuasion, (show all) I am the Editor in Chief for TNW, covering technology not as a parade of launches and valuations, but as a system of influence, persuasion, and change. I write about startups, venture capital, digital policy, and Europe ecosystem, with an eye on the larger story beneath them: who gets to build the future, who profits from it, and how Europe is learning to speak in a louder voice of its own. Before moving into senior editorial leadership, I've built my career for over +10 years across journalism, storytelling, content strategy, SEO, and digital publishing, with experience in SaaS, hospitality, art, and culture.

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