Katie Marsh (Recupere): Fixing Europe’s Copper Problem

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New Wave | Hugo Rauch | Substack

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🌊 Building a Sovereign Copper Supply

We’re joined by Katie Marsh, Co-Founder & CEO of Recupere Metals, a next-gen industrial company rethinking how copper is produced for electrification.

Fresh off a €5M seed round closed in just 30 days, Katie shares how Recupere is turning scrap copper into high-performance electrical wires, without smelting, without green premiums, and without compromising on quality.

In this episode, we dive into the coming copper supply crisis, and unpack what it really takes to build a climate-critical industrial company that can scale fast, compete on cost, and integrate directly into global supply chains.

In our conversation, we covered:

→ How to run a fast, disciplined fundraising process in a brutal market

→ Why copper supply, not batteries, may be the real bottleneck to electrification

→ The technical breakthrough that makes scrap copper competitive

→ Why smelting is the hidden carbon and cost villain in metals

→ How software and data create Recupere’s defensibility

→ What Europe gets wrong about sovereignty, supply chains, and resilience

→ The real risks founders face when moving from lab to first commercial plant

Katie also explains why price parity matters more than climate narratives, how OEMs think about supply-chain de-risking, and why the best climate businesses don’t rely on green premiums to win.