Magma Partners Invests in NIU NIU to Unlock Critical Metals from E-Waste in Latin America

We’re thrilled to be backing Dylan, Erube, Arturo, and the NIU NIU team as they build the missing infrastructure for critical metals recovery in Latin America.

Latin America is rich in critical metals like lithium, cobalt, and gold, which are essential for building batteries, electronics, and clean energy systems. These metals, often grouped under the term critical minerals, aren’t limited to underground mines; they also exist above ground, trapped in e-waste: discarded phones, laptops, batteries, and post-industrial waste from manufacturers. Most of this material never makes it back into the supply chain. NIU NIU is changing that.

Today, most e-waste in Latin America and much of the Global South is misclassified, exported illegally, or handled by informal recyclers, which means it can’t be accepted by the refiners who can actually recover the valuable minerals. Valuable materials like lithium, cobalt, and gold are often misprocessed or discarded entirely. 

According to the Global E-waste Monitor 2024, the world generated approximately 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022. Yet, only 22.3% of that waste was officially collected and recycled. While the potential value of recoverable materials in e-waste is estimated at $91 billion, formal recycling efforts currently capture just $28 billion, leaving over $60 billion worth of resources untapped.

Even with limited recovery, formal recycling already prevents the extraction of 900 billion kilograms of ore. Components like Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and lithium batteries often contain higher concentrations of critical minerals than newly mined ore. But without the right infrastructure, that value is left behind.

NIU NIU is solving this by recovering those critical materials and getting them back into the supply chain. It’s building a compliant recovery and classification system that ensures e-waste meets international refining standards. With export permits from SEMARNAT and the EPA, NIU NIUu is one of the only companies legally authorized to ship PCBs and lithium batteries to the U.S.

NIU NIU has built a legal, export-ready supply chain to recover these materials from Mexico, and eventually the rest of Latin America, and deliver them to top-tier refiners in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Niu Niu manages the entire process, from sourcing and classification to compliance and logistics, ensuring materials like PCBs and lithium-ion batteries reach the right buyers for reuse in EVs, electronics, and energy storage.

To scale this recovery and export process efficiently, the team is developing proprietary technology that helps identify and classify e-waste, improving pricing accuracy, traceability, reporting and operational efficiency.

Dylan, Erube, and Arturo know this space inside out, from how waste actually moves on the ground to what it takes to meet export standards. They’ve built the relationships and capabilities needed to connect local waste generators, like OEMs and manufacturers, with the global refiners that can actually process these materials for reuse.