Climate tech company Promethean Particles secures £8 million Series A investment to scale-up advanced MOF manufacturing
Promethean Particles (“Promethean” or “the Company”), a chemical manufacturing company specialising in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), today announces the closing of a £8m financing round. The investment was led by Mercia Ventures and Aramco Ventures, with participation from existing investors including the Midlands Engine Investment Fund I (managed by Foresight), the University of Nottingham, TSP Ventures, and the East Midlands Early Growth Fund (managed by the British Business Bank).
MOFs are a class of materials composed of metal ions interconnected by organic molecules to form a porous, lattice-like structure. Their unique architecture gives them an exceptionally high surface area and customizable pore sizes, which allows them to trap and store gases and liquids efficiently. This makes MOFs highly effective for applications such as gas storage and separation, carbon capture, and catalysis.
“The closing of our Series A round represents a significant milestone in the Company’s growth journey, and we are delighted to welcome Mercia and Aramco Ventures to the Promethean team,” said James Stephenson, chief executive officer of Promethean. “We are extremely grateful for the trust they have placed in us and are excited by their recognition of our business potential and the impact we can have on the world. It is increasingly evident that a viable carbon capture solution is required to help mitigate the effects of climate change. MOFs show significant promise as a technological solution and Promethean’s manufacturing technology enables their production at unprecedented scale and cost-effectiveness. I couldn’t be prouder of the Promethean team for all that they have accomplished to help make this investment a reality.”
The company has developed a proprietary continuous-flow reactor that not only dramatically improves the throughput and cost of MOF production, but also increases process reliability and consistency, without sacrificing critical quality parameters. Promethean currently produces a wide portfolio of MOFs for various customer applications including carbon capture and storage (CCS), biogas upgrading, water harvesting and gas separation and storage.
Dr Marina Fuentes, investment manager at Mercia Ventures, said, “Promethean Particles is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the fast-growing MOF market through their innovative manufacturing reactor technology, which addresses the bottlenecks of cost and scalability. We are thrilled to support a highly capable team and a cutting-edge technology that has been developed over 15 years and is now ripe for commercialisation at scale. We are also excited to partner with Aramco Ventures, whose strategic expertise will bring significant value to the Board.”
Bruce Niven, head of strategic venturing at Aramco Ventures, said “MOFs are an emerging class of materials with unique properties and wide-ranging applications including several in the energy transition domain. Promethean offers new capabilities to scale manufacturing of MOFs cost-effectively, which is a critical ingredient in unlocking the potential for these materials to gain widespread acceptance.”
The new investment will enable the Nottingham-based company to build a scaled-up manufacturing facility, expand the team, and implement further projects that demonstrate the potential of MOFs in energy transition applications.
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About Promethean Particles
Promethean Particles is a UK-based, global pioneer, leading the industrial-scale manufacture of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Originally a spin-out from the University of Nottingham, the Company is now focused on utilising its proprietary continuous flow manufacturing technology to enable the deployment of MOFs at industrial scale. MOFs have shown significant potential in many applications for several years, but this potential has never been realised due to low manufacturing volumes and high costs. Promethean is changing this paradigm, manufacturing MOFs at the scale necessary to unleash their potential in the fight against climate change, particularly for carbon capture, water harvesting, and gas storage applications. More information can be found at www.prometheanparticles.co.uk.
About Mercia Ventures
Mercia Ventures is a proactive venture capital investor focused on being the first-choice partner for growth. Mercia Ventures makes equity investments of up to £10million across all sectors, with specialisms in Software, Consumer, Healthcare and Deep Tech.
Mercia Ventures is a trading name of investment funds managed by Mercia Fund Management Limited and Mercia Regional Ventures Limited, part of the Mercia Asset Management PLC Group, and sits alongside the Group’s wider private equity, debt, and proprietary balance sheet operations. The Group has 11 offices in the UK, and Mercia Ventures’ national footprint and 48 strong investment team draws on their experiences as founders, PhD scientists, software engineers, corporate financiers and management consultants to help our partner companies successfully achieve their ambitions. Mercia Asset Management PLC has c.£1.8 billion of assets under management. Mercia Asset Management PLC is quoted on AIM with the epic “MERC”.
About Aramco Ventures
Aramco Ventures is the corporate venturing arm of Aramco, the world’s leading fully integrated energy and chemical enterprise. Headquartered in Dhahran with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia, Aramco Ventures’ strategic venturing programs invest globally in start-up and high growth companies with technologies of strategic importance to its parent company, Aramco, primarily supporting its operational decarbonisation, new lower-carbon fuels businesses, and digital transformation initiatives. Aramco Ventures also operates Prosperity7, the company’s disruptive technologies investment program. For more information, please visit www.aramcoventures.com