Copenhagen-based agritech startup NitroVolt has secured €3.5 million in seed funding to advance its development of sustainable, on-site ammonia production for agriculture. Investors include BackingMinds, EIFO, Breakthrough Energy Fellows, EQT Foundation, Satgana, and DivisionM, reflecting a strong collective interest in green innovations for farming. NitroVolt’s “Nitrolyzer” technology synthesizes ammonia using only air, water, and renewable electricity, bypassing the traditional, carbon-intensive production methods and supply chain logistics that contribute significantly to global CO₂ emissions. This localized approach aims to provide farmers with a consistent, low-impact supply of nitrogen-based fertilizers, reducing both environmental impact and dependency on global ammonia supply routes. With the funding, NitroVolt will create a demonstration unit to test the technology on farms and scale up production, marking a critical step in bringing sustainable ammonia directly to agricultural sites.
Ammonia is one of the most important chemicals for modern society. Forty to fifty percent of the world’s food production relies on it – without ammonia, half of the world’s population would be starving. However, current ammonia bulk production methods emit 500 Mt CO2 / year, equivalent to 2% of global CO2 emissions, which is on par with the entire aviation industry and 18.5x larger than the entire yearly CO2 emission of all Nordic countries. Ammonia is also synthesized in large, centralized facilities, far away from the point-of-use, leading to additional CO2 emissions from distribution. Furthermore, the whole supply chain is at the mercy of global events and political disruptions, as evidenced by the drastic price increases during the COVID pandemic and war in Ukraine.
In an industry where green alternatives are needed and very few solutions have proven viable, NitroVolt is working towards a solution that will produce green ammonia directly at the point-of use – at the farm – thereby disrupting this cumbersome and long supply chain while circumventing all CO2 emissions. This is done through the company’s “Nitrolyzer” system, which will be a container-sized system that combines only air, water, and renewable electricity in an electrocatalytic ammonia synthesis process. NitroVolt’s solution totally removes fossil fuels from the production process, making its ammonia 100% renewable, carbon-free, and competitive with current ammonia prices.
With the seed round, NitroVolt plans to take its technology – which has been successful in the lab – to the real world. The next phase of the company will be to scale its technology and prove viability by building a demonstration unit on a farm. The funding will also be used to identify and forge partnerships with partners and suppliers to further support the scaling and building of these systems as the company continues to grow.
“My ambition in life is to make a measurable and lasting positive impact, which is exactly why we started NitroVolt. The climate crisis demands action today, and by providing small modular units, we can do a fast implementation of a green solution. What gets me excited to go to work every day is the knowledge that NitroVolt has the possibility of enabling both environmental impact by abating significant CO2 emissions and societal impact by proving nitrogen-fertilizer to the most exposed and at-risk regions, thereby alleviating global hunger,” says CEO Suzanne Zamany Andersen, Ph.D. in Physics Engineering who in 2017 founded the company together with CTO Mattia Saccoccio, Ph.D. in Mechanical and Energy Engineering.
“The invention of industrial ammonia production has been vital in sustaining the world’s growing population throughout the last century. Unfortunately, current production methods take a huge toll on the climate and in EIFO we are excited to support Nitrovolt on their journey to bring ammonia production into the green era where it is needed the most – on farms all around the world,” says Lasse Truels Köhler, investment manager at green investments at EIFO.
“NitroVolt’s technology is a potential game changer for farmers and our food security. The founders, Suzanne and Mattia, have impressed us with their execution power and have recruited a great core team around them. We’re proud to continue to NitroVolt and are happy to see a stellar line up of new investors join this round,” says Jasenko Hadzic, Principal at BackingMinds.
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Read the orginal article: https://arcticstartup.com/nitrovolt-raises-e3-5m-seed/
