Antora Raises $150 Million to Slash Industrial Emissions: A Letter from Our Founders

We started Antora with a simple question: How can we make the biggest positive impact on climate change?

The answer is clear: Manufacturing is the single largest driver of climate change, accounting for a staggering 30% of global emissions. And the only way to restore a livable planet is to take that number down to zero.

Fossil energy has powered hundreds of years of global industry, from the coal-fired hearths and mills of London and New England, to today’s massive chemical refineries, cement kilns, and factories that burn over a trillion dollars of fuel each year to make heat and power. Fossil fuels have been the lifeblood of heavy industry because they deliver reliable energy at extremely low cost — that’s a hard combination to beat.

Today, we are at a turning point: Cheap renewable energy is fundamentally reshaping the world we live in. In many places where fossil fuels once reigned, wind and solar electricity is cheaper than natural gas for 30–50% of the year. Within a decade, this will be the norm on every continent — triggering a transformation like those spurred by coal in the early 1800s, oil in the early 1900s, and natural gas in the early 2000s.

Two of the world’s largest sectors, electricity and transportation, are in the midst of trillion-dollar decarbonization transformations. Cheap renewable electricity is poised to make industry the next trillion-dollar decarbonization opportunity, save for one major barrier: intermittency. Wind and solar are variable, but most factories run 24/7. Bridging this gap will transform industry from “hard to decarbonize” into the biggest climate win we’ve had yet.

Thermal batteries are the key to electrifying industry, converting ultra-cheap wind and solar power into the always-on energy that drives our economy. For the first time in human history, we can generate heat and electricity — reliably and cost-effectively — without burning something. And the transformation of industry is happening at a greater speed and scale than most people realize.

To decarbonize global industry, the world needs to deploy terawatt-hours of thermal batteries. At Antora, we’ve been working to bring about this future, building a product we’ve proven at commercial scale: a modular, road-shippable, U.S. factory-made thermal battery that we’re deploying at industrial sites across America and around the world. And today, we’re taking another critical step forward.

We are proud to announce that Antora has raised $150 million in Series B funding to slash industrial emissions and rapidly scale our technology. Led by Decarbonization Partners, a partnership between BlackRock and Temasek, this funding will enable Antora to ramp production of our factory-made thermal batteries to deliver billions of dollars of zero-emissions energy to industrial customers.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal.

“Antora represents the next era for wind and solar,” says Meghan Sharp, global head of Decarbonization Partners, in the Wall Street Journal. “They’re bringing renewables to industry.”

This investment is more than an investment in Antora. It’s an investment in the clean manufacturing boom that’s unfolding across America. It’s an investment in the workers building thermal batteries and the communities where those batteries will be deployed — anywhere the wind blows and the sun shines. It’s an investment in our shared future, electrifying industry around the world with technology made here in the United States of America.

Thank you for being a part of Antora’s journey. This is just the beginning.

— Andrew, David, and Justin

If you’re ready to do the most impactful and fulfilling work of your life tackling climate change, we’re hiring.