Funding for ammonia energy startups in 2024

2024 has seen successful funding rounds for a number of ammonia energy startups, ranging in focus from catalyst development to next-generation, modular synthesis technologies.

Ammobia

US-based Ammobia closed an oversubscribed, $4.2 million funding round in April. Led by Starlight Ventures and including Collaborative Fund, Chevron Technology Ventures, Arosa Capital, Zero Infinity Partners, R7, DNX Ventures and Plug and Play Tech Center, the funds will support a 1000x scale-up of Ammobia’s next-generation synthesis technology. At our recent 2024 conference, Ammobia revealed it had hit the 10g per day production milestone with its technology in May this year, with a 1kg per day demonstrator in progress.

Copernic Catalysts

Also presented at our recent 2024 conference, US-based Copernic Catalysts closed an oversubscribed $8 million seed funding round in November. Breakout Ventures led the round, with existing investors Future Ventures and Engine Ventures and new investors, including Innospark Ventures, New Climate Ventures, and Impact Science Ventures contributing. Copernic is developing a drop-in Haber Bosch catalyst to improve synthesis loop efficiencies, and the seed funding will support scale-up of the catalyst to kg-scale testing.

Our first proprietary catalyst – already being tested by one of the world’s largest ammonia producers – can drop into existing manufacturing infrastructure and drastically reduce the temperatures and pressures required for ammonia synthesis, thereby enabling the economic production of reduced- and zero-carbon ammonia.

Jacob Grose, Co-founder and CEO of Copernic in his organisation’s official press release, 12 Nov 2024

Nium

Based in the UK, Nium closed a successful $3 million seed funding round in June. Led by AgFunder and supported by DCVC and Carbon 13, the funds will support scale-up of its next-generation Haber Bosch technology, based on its nanocatalyst. Nium is now assembling its first “minions” – the name given to its small scale, modular, low energy consumption reactors to produce ammonia.

Nitrovolt

And in the electrochemical synthesis space, Denmark-based NitroVolt has closed a successful €3.5 million seed funding round, including contributions from BackingMinds, Denmark’s sovereign wealth fund EIFO, EQT Foundation, Satgana, and DivisionM. With the seed funding, NitroVolt intends to move its lab-based technology to a real-world setting, including a demonstration unit for use on a farm. Nitrovolt’s technology is based on its patent pending lithium-mediated ammonia synthesis reactor (the “Nitrolyzer”).