Baniql: Rewiring the Future of Sustainable Nickel Processing

We are excited to announce our investment in Baniql, a deep-tech company developing a greener, safer, and more cost-efficient way to extract and refine nickel and cobalt for the battery supply chain. As demand for critical minerals accelerates alongside the global energy transition, Baniql is building the kind of enabling infrastructure that could matter far beyond a single product or market. We are proud to invest alongside BeeNext and other strategic investors to support Baniql as it helps reshape how battery-grade nickel is produced in Southeast Asia and beyond. 

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At A2D Ventures, we are drawn to companies that go after the parts of an industry that are hardest to change, but matter the most.

That is what stood out to us about Baniql.

Nickel sits at the core of the global shift toward electrification. It is a key input for EV batteries and energy storage, yet the way it is produced today is still inefficient, resource-heavy, and difficult to scale sustainably.

This is not just an operational challenge. It is a structural constraint.

When production at the materials level is inefficient, it limits everything built on top of it, from battery manufacturing to the pace of the broader energy transition.

Baniql is tackling that constraint at its source.

A large market, held back by inefficient production

Global demand for battery materials is accelerating, driven by electric vehicles, energy storage systems, and broader decarbonization trends. Nickel sits at the center of this shift. Demand for battery-grade nickel is expected to grow at 15–20% CAGR through 2030, with EV batteries alone accounting for a rapidly increasing share of consumption.

Indonesia plays a critical role in this supply chain.

The country accounts for 25% of global nickel production and has become the focal point of downstream processing following its raw nickel ore export ban. Over the past few years, billions of dollars have been invested into refining capacity, positioning Indonesia as a key supplier of battery-grade materials globally.

But despite this structural advantage, the industry remains constrained.

Traditional nickel extraction and processing are highly capital-intensive, often requiring hundreds of millions to billions of dollars to build and operate large-scale refining facilities. The process is also energy- and water-intensive, contributing to both high operating costs and environmental challenges.

As a result, access to this market is limited.

Production is concentrated among a small number of large incumbents with the balance sheet and infrastructure to operate at scale, leaving smaller players effectively locked out of the value chain.

In other words, this is not just a large and growing market.

It is a large market where supply is constrained by inefficient, capital-heavy processes.

That is where Baniql becomes compelling.

A better way to extract value from nickel

Baniql has developed a proprietary process designed to extract and refine nickel from low-grade ore and scrap metal in a far more efficient and sustainable way.

Compared with conventional approaches, the company’s system uses up to 80% less energy and 90% less water, while also turning byproducts into usable materials such as brick and gypsum mixtures for construction. 

We think that is important for two reasons.

First, it materially improves the environmental profile of a category that has historically created significant damage across local ecosystems and communities.

Second, it changes the economics.

Baniql’s modular approach lowers the capital required to build production capacity, making it more feasible to process nickel at a smaller scale and in a more distributed way. The company estimates that its plants can be built at a fraction of the cost of conventional HPAL infrastructure. 

That opens the door to a very different industry structure over time.

One where smaller and mid-sized operators can move further downstream.One where more value can be captured locally.And one where battery-grade nickel production becomes more flexible, more scalable, and less concentrated.

A meaningful value unlock for the supply chain

What makes this even more interesting is the value gap inside the nickel chain itself.

Traditionally, miners in Indonesia may sell ore at relatively low prices, while much higher-value refined outputs such as battery-grade nickel sulfate command a significant premium. That creates a strong incentive for better processing solutions.

If Baniql can help move more supply from raw or intermediate output into battery-grade material, it is not just improving efficiency. It is unlocking value that the market is currently leaving on the table.

Strong early signals in a hard category

We also like that Baniql is not purely a science project.

The company has already shown encouraging early traction, including letters of intent from battery-related manufacturers, proof-of-concept collaboration with a mining company in the US, and published patent activity around its refining process. 

In deep-tech and industrial businesses, progress is measured differently. It is not about growth at all costs or surface-level momentum. It is about whether the technology can work in the real world, whether customers care, and whether the company is building toward commercial relevance. Baniql is starting to show that.

Backing the right team for a technically difficult business

We often say that hard businesses require unusually strong teams.

The founding team brings together expertise across electrochemistry, battery technology, industrial R&D, and hydrometallurgy. Willy Halim brings deep technical grounding in batteries and electrochemistry from Cornell and UC Berkeley. Eric Januar adds experience across EV, semiconductor, and advanced materials R&D, including at Merck. Seung Wan Kim brings strategic and operating experience from the battery ecosystem through roles at Samsung and Hyundai. Dr. Yohan Suhendra adds more than two decades of experience in hydrometallurgy and metal extraction. 

This is not a company that can figure out technical discipline later. It has to be built into the company from day one.

We believe this team understands both the science and the execution required to build something enduring.

More than a single facility

What we also find interesting is that Baniql has the potential to become more than a single production asset.

Over time, the business could scale through a combination of manufacturing, joint ventures, and licensing. That creates multiple paths for growth and gives the company a chance to become a broader technology layer within the nickel and battery materials ecosystem. 

That optionality is attractive.

It means the upside is not limited to one plant or one customer relationship. If the technology proves out at scale, the company could become an important enabler for a much wider part of the market.

Why we invested

We believe Baniql is building at the intersection of three powerful forces: the global rise of electrification, the growing strategic importance of nickel, and the urgent need for cleaner and more efficient industrial processes.

It is a hard problem.But hard problems are often where the deepest value gets created.

For us, this is not just a bet on a better extraction method. It is a bet on the infrastructure layer behind the energy transition, and on a team building a more scalable way for critical materials to be processed in one of the world’s most important nickel markets.

If that future plays out the way we believe it can, Baniql will not just benefit from the shift.

It will help define it.

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For more information about Baniql, please visit their website.