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👋 Hi, I’m Hugo - founder of VCo2.
In this newsletter, I spotlight one promising pre-seed/seed climate tech startup you should keep on your radar.
Today we are talking about a startup that’s producing the world’s cheapest green hydrogen and biogenic carbon from waste biomass.
Startup Snapshot (30 sec)
🧪 Ki Hydrogen – Ultra-low-cost green Hydrogen from biomass, with valuable carbon co-product
📌 Headquarters: London, UK
🌱 Stage: Pre-seed (raised ~$1.1 M in 2023)
⚙️ Sector: Green Hydrogen & Carbon Utilization
👨🔬 Technology Readiness Level: 4/5
Problem (30 sec)
Dirty hydrogen & high costs: ~99% of hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels (grey hydrogen), emitting 1 billion tons CO₂ annually (on par with global aviation). This “grey” hydrogen is cheap ($1.50 to $2/kg) but carbon-intensive.
Green hydrogen (via water electrolysis, graph below) is clean yet highly energy-intensive and costly. Producing 1 kg requires as much as 50 kWh of electricity and cost ranges from $4-6/kg, 3x the price of grey hydrogen.
Hard-to-abate sectors at stake: Green hydrogen could help decarbonize industries like heavy transport, steel, cement and chemical production. However high costs and energy needs have limited adoption.
Solution and Technology (30 sec)
Ki Hydrogen’s system breaks down biomass into separate, pure streams of green hydrogen and biogenic CO2.
Benefits:
50% less energy demonstrated at 25kWh/kg H₂: By using the inherent chemical energy in biomass, their tech slashes external energy needs by up to 50% compared to water electrolysis. This drives down cost at about $2 per kg, roughly on par with fossil-derived hydrogen and far below typical green H₂ costs.
Co-Product Revenue: Pure biogenic CO2 for $100/ton, perfect co-location with off-take for e-fuels which require hydrogen and CO2 as feedstocks.
Proof of Concept and Financing (30 sec)
Lab-proven, scaling up: Ki Hydrogen has built lab-scale prototypes demonstrating the reaction’s viability and proving their energy efficiency. They are currently building a field demo unit.
Supply: they’ve secured biomass supply for the next four years of development.
Backed by climate investors: In 2023, Ki Hydrogen closed a $1.1 million pre-seed round led by climate-focused funds and angels (Carbon13, Founders Factory’s G-Force sustainability program, Desai Ventures, HICO investment group, and SFC capital). They’ve also been awarded $1 million in non-dilutive funding.
Founders, and Executive Team (30 sec)
CEO Koji Muto is a London Business School MBA with experience at ExxonMobil developing an $800 million hydrogen facility.
CTO Michael Stanton brings the science, he holds a PhD from Cambridge, where he researched novel waste-to-hydrogen technologies.
COO Carl Banbury has 10+ years experience in commercializing emerging technologies at startups.
Market (30 sec)
The variety of use cases for low-cost green hydrogen combines with CO2 co-product creates a large market. Here’s how Ki Hydrogen describes it:
Why Should You Keep Them on Your Radar? (30 sec)
Ki Hydrogen checks the boxes for a breakthrough climate tech with price parity in sight, a clever use of waste feedstock, and early validation from credible partners. If the upcoming pilot plant hits its targets, they could enable green hydrogen at fossil fuel prices which would unlock rapid adoption of H₂ in heavy industry.
They will likely start raising a seed round soon.
Questions that remains:
Can they achieve the same energy and cost efficiency at scale?
Can they handle the logistics of handling tons of biomass and selling tons of hydrogen?
That’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed this post.
Cheers,
👋 Hugo.
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