SolidWatts has announced that it has closed a seed funding round. The start-up, which is based in Pully in the Swiss canton of Vaud and was founded at the end of 2022, raised 1.8 million Swiss francs in this process. According to a statement, the existing investors Evercurios VC (Athens), Kickfund (Basel) and Axel Carbon Capital (Milan) continued their commitment, while Uni.Fund and Investing for Purpose, both of which hail from Athens, Loggerhead Ventures from Thessaloniki and the UK firm Almanac Ventures were gained as new investors.
In developing its solid-state radio frequency platform, SolidWatts CTO and founder Dr. Markus Aicheler, a former post-doctoral fellow at CERN, drew inspiration from the pioneering work of the Geneva-based nuclear research center in high-power solid-state radio frequency (RF) technology. While CERN uses this technology for scientific applications, Aicheler recognized its potential to replace fossil fuels in industry. RF facilitates high-power dielectric heating “at efficiencies and scale that make it a direct replacement for traditional fossil fuel-based processes - for the first time”, as the start-up, which is supported by the Swiss Climate Foundation, explains in its statement.
“This investment is a tremendous endorsement of our mission to transform how industry consumes energy and allows us to bring RF technology to the power levels and efficiencies that industry actually needs”, Aicheler states. The start-up funding will be used to expand the SolidWatts platform to higher performance levels and to implement pilot projects with industrial partners and customers seeking to actively reduce their energy consumption and cut energy costs through the electrification of heating processes.
“SolidWatts powers the future of industrial resilience”, comments George Georgiadis, Partner at Evercurious VC and representative of the investor group. “Their technology drives efficiency and provides a clear path away from fossil fuel dependency. The group is said to be promoting “an innovator born in Europe and built for the world”. ce/mm