Climate and Clean Tech | January 24, 2022

Azolla Ventures invests in Heaten’s industrial heat pumps

Amy Cortese
ImpactAlpha Editor

Amy Cortese

ImpactAlpha, Jan. 24 – Azolla Ventures is the successor fund to the Prime Impact Fund, the early stage catalytic climate fund led by the Prime Coalition. In its first investment, Azolla co-invested in Norway-based Heaten with Shell Ventures and Nysnø Climate Investments. The €6 million in funding will help Norway-based Heaten build out customer pilots to commercialize its high-temperature industrial heat pumps.

“Heat pumps are one of the few tools for decarbonizing industrial-process heat,” Azolla Ventures’ Amy Duffuor told ImpactAlpha, but it is a “notoriously unsexy” category that has not stirred investor interest. 

Catalytic capital

Electric-powered heat pumps, which channel ambient or waste heat, are increasingly replacing oil and gas to cool and heat buildings, but industrial applications requiring higher temperatures pose a challenge. Heaten’s pumps can deliver temperatures up to 215 degrees Celsius, although its first applications will focus on industries such as food, plastic and pulp that require up to 165 degrees Celsius. 

Heaten last year received €2 million in seed funding from Norwegian family-owned investment company Valinor.