On Monday, Wyoming’s Raven SR, a renewable fuels company, announced that it has received a strategic investment from Samsung Ventures, extending Raven SR’s global reach into the Asia-Pacific market.
In a statement on the investment, Raven said Samsung Ventures’ strategic investment illustrates heightened demand for scalable renewable fuel production to respond to climate change concerns. The funding from Samsung follows a $20 million round in 2021 from global oil and gas major Chevron, Japanese trading house ITOCHU, hydrogen mobility leader and innovator Hyzon Motors, and Ascent Hydrogen Fund.
Raven is soon to break ground in its first commercial waste-to-hydrogen production facility in the U.S., which will be used to produce green hydrogen and high-quality Fischer-Tropsch synthetic fuels, such as sustainable aviation fuel, from a wide range of feedstocks, including municipal solid waste, methane and biomass. Raven SR’s non-combustion Steam/CO2 Reforming process is itself emissions-free and requires minimal waste sorting before processing.
Samsung Ventures’ investment will expand Raven SR’s global reach to South Korea, a driving force in the hydrogen economy. The South Korean government recently announced plans to provide 27.9 million metric tons of clean hydrogen per year by 2050, replacing oil as the country’s predominate energy source and decreasing dependency on fossil fuels.
“Our readily deployable breakthrough technology is attracting strong backing from around the globe by major companies that are intent on making a difference in the energy transition today,” Raven CEO Matt Murdock said. “Samsung’s appreciation for our renewable fuels process will step up our ability to deliver to new markets and provide an excellent addition for worldwide renewable energy projects.”
Raven says its technology is designed to produce more green hydrogen per ton of waste than competing processes. Its process can also produce other renewable energy products, such as synthetic liquid fuels (diesel, Jet A, mil-spec, JP-8), additives and solvents (such as acetone, butanol, and naphtha), electricity via microturbines, and sustainable aviation fuel.
Last week, Raven announced its first move into the European market, establishing Raven SR Iberia, S.L., a wholly owned subsidiary, in Zaragoza, in the Aragón region of Spain.
The European Union is actively supporting the use of hydrogen as a key source of renewable energy for meeting decarbonization goals and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Raven SR is part of the Pilot Action Hy2Market and European Consortium, part of the Interregional Innovation Investment Funding Instrument I3, which aims to support the commercialization and scaling up of interregional European innovation projects and investments by developing European hydrogen value chains.
