Ki 13, a cleantech startup producing green hydrogen and biogenic CO₂ from biomass, has raised £3.7 million in seed funding. HICO Investment Group led the round, joined by Burgest, Triple Impact Ventures, GiTV and Desai Ventures, alongside non-dilutive match funding from Innovate UK.
Making synthetic fuel means buying two expensive inputs, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The standard route splits water to get the hydrogen and pulls the carbon out of the air, and both steps are electricity-hungry. Ki 13 replaces them with a single low-temperature electrochemical reaction that takes in lignocellulosic biomass and releases hydrogen and biogenic CO₂ as separate streams at the same time. Feedstock comes from agricultural and forestry residues and other leftover biological material, so nothing needs to be grown specifically to supply the process.
Per kilogram of hydrogen, that reaction draws roughly 25 kWh of electricity, against around 50 kWh for water electrolysis, according to Ki 13. On the carbon side the gap is wider: 300 kWh per tonne of CO₂, compared with the 2,000 to 3,000 kWh direct air capture can consume. Buyers for both outputs sit in the e-SAF, e-methanol and e-methane markets, where feedstock cost is the main constraint on scale.
Formerly known as Ki Hydrogen, the business already counts HICO Investment Group and Desai Ventures among its backers, both of which invested at pre-seed. Seed money goes towards an industrial pilot plant, where the biomass electrolysis technology will be tested at larger scale ahead of commercial deployment.
Economics drive meaningful change, and the world needs a radical cost difference in how synthetic fuels and chemicals are made to drive the transition at scale and at pace. We started with a first principles approach to completely rethink how to approach the problem.
We have long held the view that the biggest barrier to scaling green hydrogen and synthetic fuels is not demand, but economics. By fundamentally rethinking how hydrogen and biogenic CO₂ are produced, Ki 13 has the potential to materially reduce feedstock costs and unlock a more commercial path to scale.
