How Litus extracted key investments to power its lithium innovation

Founded: 2019
Sector: Cleantech
Services: MaRS Capital Program

Founder Ghada Nafie needed capital to help scale her startup. She worked with MaRS to refine her value proposition and pitch.

Calgary-based entrepreneur Ghada Nafie picked a white-hot sector to disrupt: lithium extraction. EVs, electronics and energy storage solutions are fuelling demand for the critical mineral; it’s estimated that by 2025 the volume of lithium mined will be 53 percent higher than it was in 2023.

But traditional mining practices, which involve pumping mineral-rich brine up to the earth’s surface, are incredibly water- and chemical-intensive. It’s estimated that every tonne of lithium extracted releases 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide. While Nafie was working on her chemical engineering PhD at the University of Calgary, she developed a clever solution: by using nanomaterials and chemical processing, lithium could be extracted from brine using far less water and energy at a fraction of the cost. Along with Pedro Pereira-Almao and Gerardo Vitale, she co-founded Litus in 2019.

The challenge: Funding from friends and family helped get the startup off the ground. However, Litus needed to secure serious money from investors to scale — a challenging task that became even harder as the market contracted.

“Investment in that space isn’t what it was from a year to two years ago,” says Nafie. (Indeed, seed-stage funding in cleantech has seen significant declines over the past few quarters.) “We entered a very busy market. It made it very difficult for us to differentiate ourselves from the competition.”

The strategy: The advisory team at MaRS worked closely with Litus to develop a multi-pronged approach. They helped Nafie recruit a CFO, which allowed her to focus her attention on business strategy. Next up, the MaRS market intelligence team detailed industry trends, competitors and investors, which helped Nafie refine the startup’s unique value proposition. Litus’s ability to efficiently and selectively extract lithium from brine that would otherwise be deemed uneconomical could make the startup more attractive to investors. At the time, Nafie also worked closely with Rick VanSant, a former senior cleantech advisor at MaRS, to hone her pitch. “He provided a lot of insights on how to position ourselves, what to share and what to present,” she says.

Plus, Leah Perry, Farzin Mou and others on the MaRS capital team connected Nafie with potential investors and provided critical follow-up support. “Leah and Farzin worked so hard to help our company grow,” says Nafie. “So many people at MaRS contributed to our success in different ways. Being a CEO is very lonely. MaRS provided a safe space,” she adds. “Not only did Rick and others help us find solutions, but they provided a light at the end of a very dark tunnel, and that’s huge for an entrepreneur.”

The impact: All that work paid off: In October 2023, Litus closed a $1.25-million pre-seed round, which was used to develop a portable pilot unit, secure additional intellectual property and grow its team. The company launched its pilot in November 2024.

This fall, the company garnered two more accolades: Litus was one of six Canadian ventures named to the prestigious Cleantech 50 to Watch list, and Foresight Canada included it on its ranking of the country’s 50 most investible cleantech ventures. “Nafie has achieved meaningful milestones in terms of letters of intent, partners to market with and other indications of support for her technology,” says VanSant.

The goal now is to raise a seed round to build a demo unit that will demonstrate Litus’ technical and economic viability in the field.

Learn how the MaRS Capital Program is helping ventures secure their next round of funding.