DTE and the EIC Accelerator: Reading Molten Metal With Lasers

DTE wants to end the manual testing of molten metal in aluminium plants. The company, founded in Reykjavík in 2013 by aluminium industry professionals, built an analyser that fires a laser directly into the liquid metal and returns its elemental composition in under 60 seconds. It calls the technique Liquid-Phase Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, LP-LIBS.

The European Innovation Council granted €2,443,617 towards IREAS, a €3.5 million project from October 2022 to September 2024 to combine the sensor with "a predictive AI-based cloud platform". The EIC Fund also invested in DTE's June 2023 funding round, according to Tech Funding News. The final report says the platform was built and three applications were deployed in metal production. Since then DTE has announced a pilot with Arconic and a deal with a Texas recycler; it does not publish revenue or a customer count.

Where DTE Stands Now

Jakob Ásmundsson became chief executive in January 2025. In July 2025 it announced that its analyser would be deployed in a pilot at an Arconic plant in North America, under a memorandum signed in October 2024, and in April 2026 it signed an agreement with Valor Alloys, a Texas aluminium recycler; neither announcement gives the number of units or the value. In 2025 it also announced partnerships with the engineering firm Ramboll and with Dynamic Concept. The Nordic development finance body Nefco says an earlier pilot with Novelis "exceeded expectations".

The Technology: A Laser in the Furnace

According to the report, IREAS built a cloud platform that pulls the analyser's database every minute into a business intelligence schema, and used it for three applications in primary aluminium: predicting failures in electrolysis pot maintenance, optimising alloying and automating the tapping of pots. The company filed three patents on its molten metal analysis during the project. The report sizes the target as a €3.5 trillion metals industry.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The project promised to turn elemental analysis into real-time intelligence for process control. The report describes the platform, the three deployed applications, the patents, more than 15 conferences and six technical papers. It does not name the plants where the applications ran or give results in yield or energy.

1. AI cloud platformDeliveredPer CORDIS report.
2. Smelter applicationsDeliveredThree deployed.
3. Measured plant resultsNot publishedNo figures given.
4. Follow-on equityRaised$16M Series A2, 2023.

The Money

DTE raised $10 million in June 2023 from Novelis, Metaplanet and the EIC Fund with existing backers Chrysalix and Brunnur, and a further $6 million from Eyrir Vöxtur in December 2023, completing a $16 million Series A2, according to Tech Funding News. No later round has been announced. DTE's annual accounts are not freely available online.

What Cannot Be Checked

Why Europe Should Care

The EIC backed an Icelandic hardware company with both a grant and equity in metals, where Nefco says up to 20% of aluminium output is out-of-spec waste. The technical work was delivered; the announcements since then are pilots and partnerships, mostly in North America.

The Verdict

DTE and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.