Munich — Climate tech start-up Reverion raises €8.5 million to acce­le­rate produc­tion of its flexi­ble power plants. UVC Part­ners, Green Gene­ra­tion Fund, Extan­tia Capi­tal, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures and biome­thane trader Land­wärme GmbH are among the inves­tors.

The fresh capi­tal will be used to expand produc­tion of 100 kilo­watt and 500 kilo­watt biogas power plants. In addi­tion, Reverion will receive €12 million in rese­arch funding, which will be used for further deve­lo­p­ment of the equip­ment. The start-up is a spin-off of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich (TUM) and parti­ci­pa­ted in the XPRENEURS incu­ba­tion program of Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s largest center for inno­va­tion and start-ups.

With Reverion’s new tech­no­logy, biogas plant opera­tors can increase their reve­nue by up to 400 percent from the same amount of biomass. The company’s upco­ming Series A finan­cing aims to further increase produc­tion and posi­tion itself for market demand for giga­watt-scale rene­wa­ble capa­city.

100 percent more effi­ci­ency and no harmful CO2 emis­si­ons

Reverion plans to replace as many conven­tio­nal power plants as possi­ble world­wide with its tech­no­logy. The first target market is exis­ting biogas plants. Today, these are powered by gas engi­nes that achieve only a very low effi­ci­ency of 40 percent at most, offer limi­ted storage opti­ons, and emit milli­ons of tons of CO2 annu­ally. Reverion’s modu­lar power plants, on the other hand, double the effi­ci­ency of elec­tri­city gene­ra­tion from 40 to 80 percent compared to conven­tio­nal tech­no­logy. Since the small power plants can also run “back­wards” (rever­si­bly), a rene­wa­ble natu­ral gas substi­tute or green hydro­gen can be gene­ra­ted and stored from a tempo­rary surplus of wind and solar power to make the grid more flexi­ble. Another advan­tage is that Reverion’s modern power plants can be opera­ted CO2-nega­tively when using biogas.

The paten­ted carbon-nega­tive fuel cell tech­no­logy has alre­ady found nume­rous custo­mers today. “We alre­ady have pre-orders of over 60 million euros that we want to fulfill,” explains Felix Fischer, co-foun­der and COO. “Our goal is to break even by ente­ring volume produc­tion and rapidly scaling the number of units ship­ped.“

EU Commis­sion targets acce­le­rate Reverion’s market entry

Rapid action is also requi­red to ensure that Germany can achieve the EU Commission’s targets for the energy tran­si­tion (Net Zero Act) in the fore­seeable future. Reverion can make an important contri­bu­tion to achie­ving these goals. “Our tech­no­logy addres­ses four of the eight curr­ently stated goals: Impro­ving energy storage, expan­ding elec­tro­ly­sis proces­ses and fuel cells, incre­asing the use of biogas and biome­thane, and carbon storage. We are ther­e­fore confi­dent that a rapid and compre­hen­sive market entry will give Germany and the EU a compe­ti­tive edge in highly flexi­ble and carbon-nega­tive energy supply,” explains Stephan Herr­mann, co-foun­der and CEO.

Estab­lished indus­tries must coope­rate

Access to capi­tal is para­mount when ente­ring mass produc­tion, and close colla­bo­ra­tion with estab­lished indus­try is criti­cal to success. This is exactly where UVC Part­ners can assist as an expe­ri­en­ced hard­ware inves­tor. “We looked at various start-ups in this field. The foun­ding team of Reverion convin­ced us because they have deve­lo­ped an outstan­ding tech­no­logy over the last years and successfully tested it in a pilot plant. With our large network toge­ther with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, we can bring part­ners, suppli­ers and exper­tise to the table to further scale the tech­no­logy,” explains Johan­nes von Borries, Mana­ging Direc­tor at UVC Partners.

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin-based early-stage venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in Euro­pean B2B start-ups in the fields of enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and mobi­lity. The fund gene­rally invests between €0.5 and €10 million at the outset and up to €30 million in total per company. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading inno­va­tion and start-up center. With over 400 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. This colla­bo­ra­tion gives UVC Part­ners the oppor­tu­nity to provide start­ups with unique access to talent, indus­try clients and other finan­cial partners.

About Reverion

Reverion GmbH is a spin-off of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich. The start-up is deve­lo­ping the tech­no­logy, which was successfully vali­da­ted as part of a rese­arch project, to commer­cial matu­rity and is marke­ting it as a plant manu­fac­tu­rer. The contai­ner-based plants can replace conven­tio­nal gas engi­nes with their low effi­ci­en­cies and can also be opera­ted with hydro­gen in addi­tion to biogas. In addi­tion, plants produce pure CO2 as a bypro­duct of elec­tri­city gene­ra­tion, so they can operate CO2-nega­tively. In parti­cu­lar, howe­ver, they are rever­si­ble, so that surplus rene­wa­ble elec­tri­city from wind and photo­vol­taics can also be conver­ted into hydro­gen or methane as a substi­tute for natu­ral gas in the same plants. The tech­no­logy ther­e­fore combi­nes all the essen­tial core elements — increased effi­ci­ency, CO2-nega­tive opera­tion and large-scale seaso­nal energy storage — that are still needed for successful imple­men­ta­tion of the energy tran­si­tion, in a single plant. www.reverion.com