Addis Energy secures $8.3 MM to scale its transformative approach to low-cost ammonia production
Addis Energy announced it has raised $8.3 MM in an oversubscribed seed round, bringing the company’s total funding to date to $17.3 MM. The round was led by At One Ventures, with existing investors Engine Ventures and Pillar VC also participating. Addis Energy will use the fresh capital to further advance its AI-aided laboratory of chemical reactors that simulate subsurface conditions to produce ammonia at a cost advantage versus Haber-Bosch through a net energy-positive process. The company will also use the capital to expand its operations team and prepare for its first field pilot demonstration.
Ammonia is a critical component of the global food supply, with approximately 70% used to make fertilizer. Demand for ammonia is projected to increase 25% over the next five years; however, traditional ammonia production is extremely energy intensive, consuming 2% of global energy. Over a third of traditional ammonia production costs come from consumption of natural gas as a feedstock and fuel for the high temperature, high pressure reaction. Addis Energy is scaling a fundamentally new approach to replace the energy-intensive process of traditional ammonia production. By identifying ferrous rocks, injecting water, nitrogen and catalyst to drive an ammonia synthesis reaction, the company leverages the chemical potential of iron plus the natural heat and pressure of the subsurface. Addis Energy dramatically decreases the energy intensity and costs versus typical ammonia produced from natural gas.
“By merging chemical innovation developed out of MIT with on-the-ground oil and gas industry experience, Addis Energy is enabling energy abundance and affordability, and creating new economic opportunities for domestic energy production with zero emissions,” said Michael Alexander, CEO and co-founder of Addis Energy. “Considering the U.S. imports 12% of the domestic ammonia supply, we have a timely opportunity to create a new platform for U.S.-led, domestic clean fuel and chemical production. This funding will allow us to scale our novel approach to ammonia production and get ‘shovel-ready’ for our first pilot.”
Following its January 2025 launch, Addis Energy has:
- Signed a partnership with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratories, to conduct reactive transport modeling based on the laboratory’s expertise drilling wells and modeling chemical reactions in carbon sequestration and in-situ mining.
- Sourced 600+ rock samples from various geologies and rock formations across the U.S. to demonstrate cost-advantage production of ammonia in new locations where natural gas supply isn’t abundant.
“Addis Energy is not trying to “green” ammonia. They’re throwing out the model entirely. Instead of spending billions to recreate extreme pressure and heat above ground, they use what already exists underground. The Earth becomes the reactor,” said Laurie Menoud, Partner at At One Ventures. “Haber-Bosch is one of the most efficient industrial processes ever built, which is exactly why incremental innovations won’t compete with it. The only way to win is to change the physics and the system architecture. Addis is doing both. And that’s how you get a cost curve that incumbents simply can’t follow.”
In the coming months, Addis Energy will work to complete its nation-wide geological mapping and prepare for its first pilot field test.
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