Congratulations to ZCC portfolio company Ionate, who today announced their £3.3m seed funding round led by IQ Capital. This funding will enable them to scale operations and deliver their pioneering hardware-software power flow control solution, the Hybrid Intelligent Transformer, to real world power systems.
Ionate was the first company we invested in from the Zero Carbon Fund back in 2020. During our first meetings, Matthew and Rob helped us understand the challenges that the grid and power generation systems were going to face as we scaled the percentage of renewable generation. As the number of generation points explodes and the influence of centralised mechanical generation (like gas power stations) is reduced, it will be increasingly difficult to controlling the quality of the power on the grid - leading to potential grid failures. Their solution was an innovative new type of transformer that could sit at generation sites and throughout the grid, managing key characteristics of the power in real-time.
Over the last two years the Hybrid Intelligent Transformer has gone from computer simulations, to bench-top prototypes, and now to a full scale version that the team is finalising with their manufacturing partner. Alongside this they've made great progress with commercial relationships, meaning they are poised to execute parallel proof-of-concept trials across multiple geographies, beginning next year.
This type of deep, technical innovation in the guts of our power systems doesn't get as much attention as we think it should. It's critical to achieving deep-decarbonisation and represents a huge opportunity to transform the way our world works. It has been a real pleasure to have a front row seat on Ionate's journey, and we're excited to continue our commitment to them with a follow-on investment and our continuing participation on their board.
Well done Ionate! 👏