Kevin O'Toole. Image: Exergyn
Exergyn plans to bring its thermal management tech to market, with the aim of reducing emissions and eliminating refrigerant gases.
Dublin-based start-up Exergyn has raised $35m in a Series A funding round to help roll out its thermal management technology.
The Series A round was led by commodity trading multinational Mercuria and family office-backed multi-strategy fund Lacerta Partners. Prague-based private equity and venture capital firm McWin also participated.
The funding boost will enable Exergyn to bring its technology to market through partnerships with multinational corporations.
The start-up uses shape memory alloys (SMAs) to design and develop thermal management products to help industry partners reduce their carbon footprint and boost sustainability. SMAs are materials with an ability to revert to their original shape following deformation upon exposure to a specific temperature.
Exergyn co-founder and managing director Kevin O’Toole said that by joining forces with Mercuria, Lacerta and McWin, his team will be able to expand its offering “into multiple new and exciting verticals”.
“Exergyn’s mission is to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by leveraging SMAs to enable the commercial production of groundbreaking, clean energy products. We are thrilled to leverage this latest funding and begin Exergyn’s next phase, offering sustainable, cost-effective, clean solutions to a variety of industries worldwide.”
The heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and refrigeration industries account for a sizeable chunk of global CO2 emissions. Exergyn said that the introduction of its emission-free heating and cooling products could reduce the environmental footprint of these industries significantly and eliminate refrigerant gases over the next 30 to 40 years.
The company’s target market includes waste conversion plants, landfill sites, district heating schemes, smart city hubs, geothermal sites and shipping.
Exergyn was founded in 2012 by Alan Healy, Barry Cullen and Kevin O’Toole. It is based at Dublin City University’s Alpha campus.
The company has been supported by Enterprise Ireland, SEAI, EU Horizon 2020, Carbon Trust UK and the Irish Government’s Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund.
It employs 33 staff across Dublin, the UK, the US and the Czech Republic. The funding will go towards supporting its R&D capabilities in Dublin and Prague, growing its staff headcount to 60.
David Haughie, managing director at Mercuria said the ambition is for Exergyn’s SMA applications to “negate the need for refrigerants in traditional sectors such as the cooling and refrigeration industry, allowing even more cost-efficient operation, with zero HFC-driven impact on the environment”.
Alexi Papaconstantinou and Ziad Noujaim at Lacerta Partners, added: “Exergyn’s technology is bringing much-needed clean-tech solutions and an innovative approach to tackling some of the most challenging global greenhouse gas emission issues facing a wide range of industries.”
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