Dive Brief:
- Emvolon, a startup whose modular systems convert biogas into methanol, announced it raised $22 million in a series A funding round to spur project development.
- Funding round participants included VX Ventures, Wagner Carbon and MassVentures, the last of which has backed Emvolon since 2023. “Emvolon's standardized, modular platform has the potential to fundamentally change the economics of distributed clean fuel production,” MassVentures’ Priya Yadav said in a statement Tuesday.
- The cash comes as the company looks to scale up from a pilot at a WM-run landfill with Montauk Renewables. It also announced in August an offtake agreement with Freepoint Commodities.
Dive Insight:
Biogas from waste facilities is a common input for renewable natural gas, a drop-in gas fuel replacement for energy pipelines and natural gas-powered vehicles. But as the transportation fuel market has become somewhat saturated with renewable natural gas, biogas groups have been supportive of alternative uses. That includes methanol, a liquid fuel with some support from the maritime industry which is looking for replacements for the fossil fuels it largely uses today.
Emvolon’s technology also fits into a growing market of startups looking to refine biogas from smaller landfills, in part as the United States’ largest landfills draw nearer to completing their own landfill-gas-to-RNG projects.
Emvolon was spun out from development at MIT in 2021. The company’s system can refine biogas from landfills, anaerobic digestion facilities and other sources into petroleum fuel alternatives.
The company two years ago launched a pilot with Montauk Renewables at WM's Atascocita Landfill outside Houston. The pilot turned the landfill's gas into methanol, a liquid fuel that Emvolon co-founder and CEO Emmanuel Kasseris previously told Waste Dive has a variety of applications, including in the maritime industry and as a blend-in to gasoline in Europe.
In August, the company announced an offtake agreement and investment from Freepoint Commodities worth up to $450 million. The seven-year deal allowed Freepoint to serve as the primary buyer for up to 300,000 tons of Emvolon’s fuel production annually, as well as provide financial backing as the startup looked to deploy its systems.
The series A funding will further enable Emvolon to scale, starting with plans for its first commercial-scale system. The company envisions delivering its prefabricated systems at waste sites, landfills, dairies, wastewater treatment facilities and industrial flare gas locations.
“This round gives us the capital to deploy our first commercial system, prove the model, and start building the supply chains that hard-to-abate industries are actively looking for,” Kasseris said in a statement Tuesday.
Following an investment, Eric Bensaude is also expected to join Emvolon's board of directors. The current managing director of liquefied natural gas commercial operations at Cheniere Energy, Bensaude brings experience with liquid commodity markets, international distribution and large-scale energy commercialization, per the release.
