Peregrine Hydrogen – a climate technology company pioneering a dual production method for green hydrogen and valuable chemicals – recently announced an oversubscribed $7.8 million seed funding round. This funding round was led by Bidra with participation from Builders, Gates Frontier, Presidio Ventures, RiSC Capital and Schox. And Peregrine will utilize the funds to refine and scale-up their proprietary technology and expand into commodity chemical markets.
Hydrogen is considered to be irreplaceable in today’s world. And it is used to produce commodities that directly address the basic needs of human society, including fertilizer, plastics, and other critical products. Hydrogen is produced today from fossil fuels, primarily through the methods of steam methane reforming (SMR) and coal gasification. Even though these are generally low-cost processes, they release almost one billion tons of carbon dioxide each year (or about 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions).
Peregrine – which spun out of the climate technology incubator Orca Sciences in June 2023 – has been developing a novel electrolyzer technology to produce clean hydrogen at cost parity with today’s SMR pathway. And this breakthrough was achieved through Peregrine’s co-production technology which delivers clean hydrogen along with valuable industrial chemicals. Plus, Peregrine’s technology utilizes proprietary chemical engineering advances and strategic integration methods to pursue commercial opportunities at scale.
Decarbonization efforts in historically difficult to abate sectors are going to benefit from Peregrine’s technology. To start, Peregrine is going to target fertilizer applications, which is responsible for feeding roughly 50% of humanity. And Peregrine’s unique co-production technology not only decarbonizes the hydrogen for ammonia production but also simplifies supply chains and provides additional strategic advantages for fertilizer producers.
This funding round will support technical development and hiring. And Peregrine is growing its technical team based in California. The company is also focusing on recruiting industry experts, high energy chemical engineers and process engineering specialists.
KEY QUOTES:
“The world’s hydrogen is already being co-produced, but rarely in beneficial ways. SMR produces dirty CO2 with hydrogen. Conventional water electrolysis produces hydrogen and a less valuable stream of oxygen. Peregrine’s technology co-produces clean hydrogen and valuable commodity chemicals at or below prices previously only achieved by using dirty production methods based on fossil fuels. We are grateful to our investors for joining us in this mission as we scale our technology across the large markets which can benefit from our unique approach.”
— Friðrik Lárusson, co-founder & CEO of Peregrine Hydrogen
“Green hydrogen production technology has been around for 100+ years but we’ve lacked the innovation to compete with pollutive, fossil-based production methods. Peregrine’s unique vision to produce hydrogen together with other critical chemical feedstocks will reduce the cost and complexity, thus making it scalable globally, particularly in countries like Morocco with unique advantages that enable low-cost production of hydrogen. Peregrine is a perfect fit for what we want to achieve. We are delighted to back an exceptional team with a track record of turning technical breakthroughs into commercial successes.“
— Amar Singh, Head of Bidra
“The world isn’t willing to pay more for clean hydrogen. That’s why we are developing the Peregrine co-production process; it makes energetic and financial sense today, without a need for subsidies.”
— Matt Shaner, co-founder and CTO of Peregrine
