Cornish Lithium has raised £5.1mln through the crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.

The crowdfunding is one of the largest undertaken in the UK this year.

The offering was designed to allow Cornish Lithium’s existing shareholders, as well as new retail shareholders, the opportunity to invest in tandem with the recently announced £53.6 mln investment from the UK Infrastructure Bank, the Energy and Minerals Group and TechMet.

Existing shareholders received priority access to the financing round with Crowdcube, investing £1mln in just 27 minutes.

The new money will enable Cornish Lithium to progress its hard rock lithium project to a construction-ready status, as well as to complete the engineering design work required to build a demonstration-scale geothermal waters extraction facility.

“The proceeds of the crowdfunding along with those from our landmark investment package will give us the balance sheet strength to materially progress our projects in order to provide a secure, domestic source of lithium and support the UK’s automotive sector’s shift to EVs, while providing long term career opportunities for the communities around the project,” said Jeremy Wrathall, founder and chief executive of Cornish Lithium said.

“We look forward to keeping existing and new shareholders informed as we progress our projects in Cornwall.”