Lithios Inc.

Lithios Inc., a for-profit company headquartered in Medford, Massachusetts, develops electrochemical lithium extraction technology and operates as a small business prime recipient on federal research and energy-development grants and SBIR contracts. The company competes under small business set-asides, with all three recent awards falling under total small business designations.

Lithios' federal footprint centers on advanced lithium extraction (ALE) technology development. The company received a $74,980 SBIR Phase I contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory awarded June 27, 2024, under the total small business set-aside for research topic FX245-PCSO1-0779, with completion in September 2024. More substantially, Lithios received a $499,320 ARPA-E project grant (CFDA 81.135) awarded August 22, 2024, to develop ALE as a disruptive electrochemical technology for extracting lithium from difficult feedstocks with high purity, running through February 2026. Most recently, on July 24, 2026, the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Lithios a $32.987 million cooperative agreement (CFDA 81.135) under the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy program to develop and demonstrate ALE technology at commercial scale. Under this three-year award through July 23, 2029, Lithios will operate ALE at an existing U.S. facility with access to lithium-containing brine, extracting 100 tons per year of lithium carbonate to demonstrate the technology's readiness for commercial scaling and build toward a kiloton-scale commercial facility by 2030. Performance location is Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ALE technology uses an electrochemical process that captures lithium atoms in an electrode while leaving impurities in the brine, then releases lithium into a clean recovery solution for processing into market-ready lithium carbonate.

Customer concentration is bifurcated between ARPA-E (two awards) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (one award), accounting for 100% of recent awards. Combined obligated dollars across all three awards total $33.6 million against a combined potential-value floor of $75 thousand, reflecting the substantial gap between the initial SBIR and early-stage ARPA-E grant commitments and the $32.987 million cooperative-agreement scope awarded in July 2026. Lithios operates exclusively as a prime recipient; the source records no subcontract work. The vendor's narrow award footprint and early-stage posture — two awards in 2024 and one in 2026 — reflect a pre-scale technology-development company rather than an operational service provider.