On February 20, 2024, ARPA-E awardee AtmosZero announced a $21M Series A financing round led by a transatlantic team of investors at the US-based Engine Ventures and European firm 2150, and supported by Constellation Technology Ventures. This Series A funding round will allow the AtmosZero team to advance their global mission to decarbonize industrial steam production, moving their flagship Boiler 2.0 device from a proof-of-concept to a commercial product ready for customers.

Steam is everywhere, yet it remains an overlooked part of the energy transition equation. It touches every aspect of our lives, powering the processes that provide everything from what we eat and drink to the clothes we wear, and impacting the very air we breathe. Industrial steam production also accounts for 50% of all industrial process heat and 8% of global CO₂ emissions. For the past 160 years, we’ve been producing it the same old way: burning fossil fuels to heat water. AtmosZero’s Boiler 2.0 design challenges that paradigm, offering an electrified steam drop-in replacement for existing industrial combustion boilers that operates more-or-less like the air-source heat pumps that have become increasingly popular in residential heating and cooling in recent years.

AtmosZero’s Boiler 2.0 could improve industrial steam production from the 20% efficiency loss associated with existing combustion boilers to twice as efficient, offering tangible real-world climate impact. Further, this modular heat pump-based design is both “capital light and operationally efficient” and can be scaled to meet customer needs, said AtmosZero Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Ashwin Salvi. These advantages potentially eliminate several significant barriers to adoption for industry, allowing the team to put their device in the hands of customers more quickly than some other “hard tech” devices struggling to make meaningful impact in the energy space.

AtmosZero's Boiler 2.0 (Source: AtmosZero)

This recent news builds on significant progress made by the AtmosZero team in 2023, when they announced a partnership with Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing Company to utilize the Boiler 2.0 device to create the steam needed to power their operations. AtmosZero intends to have their pilot facility fully up and running in 2025.

AtmosZero’s Series A funding raises their total investment to date to nearly $30M, including a seed round supported by Starlight Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, and Aenu. AtmosZero has also received Department of Energy funding through ARPA-E’s SEED Exploratory Topic, which catalyzes entrepreneurial energy discoveries by identifying and supporting disruptive concepts in energy-related technologies within small businesses and collaborations with universities and national labs, as well as DOE’s newly-formed Industrial Efficiency & Decarbonization Office (IEDO).