HydRegen, a biotechnology company making chemical manufacturing up to 40% more cost-effective while lowering carbon emissions by making biology perform like chemistry, today announced it has closed $8 million (£6 million) in the first close of its Series A financing. The funding will enable HydRegen to expand its work with existing customers in the pharmaceutical and specialty chemical industries while accelerating adoption with new customers across chemicals, agrochemicals, materials and bulk chemicals. Genoa Ventures led the financing, with participation from Clean Growth Fund and First Imagine! Ventures. Additional support came from Oxford Technology Management, Headington Holdings, Oxonian, Foxglove Capital and Rapid Innovation Group.

Hydrogenation is a critical step in manufacturing chemicals, but conventional precious-metal catalyzed processes can be energy-intensive, difficult to optimize and increasingly challenging to operate within tightening environmental and regulatory requirements. HydRegen offers a biologically derived alternative for performing these reactions, essential to 14 to 20% of all processes in the trillion-dollar industrial chemicals market.

HydRegen produces a hydrogenase enzyme through fermentation, then formulates it into a suite of proprietary catalyst platforms that enable the same enzyme to perform hundreds of different hydrogenation reactions. Harnessing one enzyme across many chemical processes creates a unique opportunity to deploy biomanufacturing widely, achieve the unit economics required for cost-sensitive markets and accelerate adoption across chemical manufacturing. HydRegen can introduce its bio-based catalyst technology as a “drop-in” to existing infrastructure, where it can turn over millions of times, delivering cost savings and improving sustainability without requiring customers to redesign or rebuild the plant.

“Chemical manufacturing has been built around precious-metal catalysts for decades, creating an enormous global infrastructure optimized to use them. Biology can now perform many of the same reactions under far milder conditions, but asking manufacturers to abandon that infrastructure would hinder widespread adoption,” said Holly Reeve, PhD, CEO and co-founder of HydRegen. “We approached the problem differently. We made biology perform like chemistry, creating biocatalyst-based technology platforms that can drop into the equipment and processes manufacturers already use. Manufacturers can change the catalyst without changing the factory, opening a path to make chemical manufacturing both less expensive and more sustainable at scale.”

This investment will enable HydRegen to take the platform into higher-volume markets and expand into additional applications, giving manufacturers greater flexibility in the molecules, feedstocks and manufacturing processes they use, supporting a broader shift toward more efficient and sustainable chemical production.

“The promise of using biology to transform industrial production is enormous, but too often the capital journey doesn’t pencil out. Companies face massive scale-up costs, build infrastructure before they have proven the economics, or develop remarkable technology without solving the full problem a customer needs solved,” said Jenny Rooke, PhD, founder and managing director of Genoa Ventures. “With HydRegen, we see all of those pieces come together: great science, solid economics, a path to scale, capital efficiency, and demonstrated customer demand, all led by a team that has spent years building around the realities of how this industry actually works.”

For more information on HydRegen, please visit hydregenoxford.com.

About HydRegen

HydRegen Ltd is redefining chemical manufacturing with a breakthrough biocatalytic platform that delivers sustainable, cost-effective production processes. Its proprietary Bio2Amine technology replaces traditional hydrogenation methods and delivers up to 40% cost savings, integrating directly into existing infrastructure without requiring changes. By replacing traditional hydrogenation with a plug-and-play technology, HydRegen is helping clients across the chemical and specialty ingredients sectors lower emissions, improve process efficiency and accelerate the transition to sustainable manufacturing.

About Genoa Ventures

Founded in 2018, Genoa Ventures’ investment thesis centers on empowering visionary entrepreneurs to create science-driven companies that leave a lasting mark on the world. The firm’s portfolio companies are pushing the frontier of biotechnology in areas such as research & development tools, diagnostics, MedTech, AgriFood, and industrial biology. Genoa Ventures is now investing out of its third fund and manages over $150 million in assets. For more information on Genoa Ventures, please visit www.genoavc.com.

About Clean Growth Fund

Clean Growth Fund is a specialist climate tech venture capital platform. It was set up in 2020 to invest in UK-based innovations that significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions or improve resource efficiency across: power and energy systems, transport and mobility, industrial decarbonisation, buildings and the built environment, agrifood, circular economy. https://www.cleangrowthfund.com

About First Imagine! Ventures

First Imagine! Ventures is a European venture capital investor focused on the energy transition. Founded in 2016, the firm invests in technology-driven startups across the energy transition value chain. First Imagine! Ventures is a member of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA). www.firstimagine.com

Media gallery

About The Author
Business Wire