Estonian cleantech Efenco closes €4.5M round for slashing carbon emissions

Tallinn-based Efenco, the cleantech startup that aims to accelerate the transition to low carbon technologies, has closed a total of €4.5 million, led by Ivo Remmelg for EstBAN Syndicate and grants from the EU’s European Innovation Council, it informed AIN.Capital. The funds will be used for product engineering.

• Efenco was co-founded by Kristjan Tiik, Aleksandr Nagornoy, and Aleksander Vlassov and develops Cold-Plasma-Assisted Carbon Neutral Combustion (CPA PAC for short) technology for industrial heat production. Efenco already has six commercial partners lined up for scale-commercial pilot projects, including Adven, Thermory, and Bepco. The first of these is targeting 1,000 hours of continuous operation.
• The company calculates that its initial technology could be installed in the 30% of gas boilers being used in the EU for high temperature industrial process heat applications. Even at an 18% efficiency gain, this represents a potential 5% total reduction in the EU’s energy consumption and carbon emissions from natural gas combustion.

“There are some hard choices coming up if the world is going to make it to net zero.Without them we can’t make steel or concrete. And without those, we can’t build the infrastructure needed for renewable energies. Efenco’s tech provides the industrial furnace efficiency breakthrough we need to bridge that gap. We see it as an essential foundation for the clean energy future, moving gradually towards hydrogen-based solutions.”

Kristjan Tiik, Efenco CEO and co-founder, says.

• The fresh investment consists of €1.3 million led by Ivo Remmelg, an entrepreneur and one of the founding members of EstBAN Syndicate, and €3.2 million in grants from the EU’s European Innovation Council (EIC) and Estonia’s Archimedes Foundation. 
• Efenco will use the investment for further product engineering, to integrate advanced materials ensuring durability, functionality, and compliance.