BOTHELL, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Modern Electron announced an oversubscribed $30 million Series B funding round led by At One Ventures, with participation from new investors Extantia, Starlight Ventures, Valo Ventures, and strategic investors IRONGREY and Wieland Group.
All existing investors including Bill Gates and MetaPlanet continued their participation and expanded their investments as part of the funding round.
The Series B capital will be used to integrate Modern Electron’s proprietary technologies into heating appliances with leading manufacturers of HVAC and energy systems. By converting wasted heat into bonus electricity, Modern Electron increases the efficiency of furnaces, boilers, and hot water heaters. This saves homeowners and building operators money, reduces CO2 emissions, and increases the resiliency of critical heat & electricity systems during power outages.
Modern Electron will also leverage the investment to deploy hydrogen production pilots that demonstrate affordable decarbonization of gas heating without any new infrastructure. Modern Electron’s next generation distributed hydrogen production technology addresses rapidly increasing market demand for heating without CO2 emissions inside residential and commercial buildings, as well as the industrial sector.
Notably, Modern Electron’s distributed hydrogen production can decarbonize applications where existing renewable electrification technologies struggle and proposed infrastructure solutions such as a “hydrogen grid” are years away and expensive. These include applications where full electrification solutions are costly to retrofit and cannot handle peak heat demand, as well as applications utilizing high-temperature heat beyond the capabilities of electric heat pumps, present in everything from steam for heating, cleaning, and sterilization, to process heating for manufacturing metals, cement, chemicals, and even food and paper.
As part of the financing, Tom Chi, founding partner at At One Ventures, will join Modern Electron’s board of directors. At One Ventures backs early-stage deep tech companies catalyzing a world where humanity is a net positive to nature. Modern Electron is a perfect example of the thesis in action, using disruptive deep technologies with superior unit economics to decarbonize heating systems in buildings and the industrial sector.
“More than half the energy we use is for heat, yet most of our decarbonization efforts have been electricity-centric,” said Tom Chi, Founding Partner at At One Ventures. “We need breakthroughs to decarbonize heat energy and Modern Electron is transforming the landscape of the possible.”
“We are working closely with leading brands in the heating industry to bring innovative technologies to market. And partners like At One Ventures and our new strategic investors support the scaling and commercial realization of our tech. They understand the landscape well, as well as the practical dimensions of getting climate tech innovations to market,” said Tony Pan, Co-founder and CEO of Modern Electron. “In addition, having a global investor base across the USA, Europe, and Asia, gives us on-ramps to multiple opportunities to make a huge dent in decarbonization, all while driving savings as opposed to charging a green premium.”
“Heat is 50% of final energy demand in our civilization. Even in homes, half of the energy used in the USA is for heating, the majority of which comes from gas. Before now there’s been no low-cost, drop-in solution to improve the efficiency and reduce emissions from heating currently dominated by gas. This is especially true in cold climates, existing buildings, and industrial process heating. Our technology stretches more useful energy and value out of any fuel use, and we’re paving the way for the hydrogen future,” said Max Mankin, Co-founder and CTO of Modern Electron. “We are excited to work closely with industry leaders to bring all of our innovative technologies to the heating market as we accelerate the transition to a cleaner energy future.”
About Modern Electron
Modern Electron is a sustainable heating and power technology company founded in 2015. Modern Electron’s technology enables consumers of heat to save money, reduce carbon emissions, and increase resiliency during power outages. The company’s next-generation technology decarbonizes buildings and industry further by producing hydrogen without CO2 emissions directly where it will be used. Visit us at www.modernelectron.com
