Participated · Equity · Feb 2026

Rapidus was founded in August 2022 and is led by CEO Atsuyoshi Koike. The company is developing advanced logic chip manufacturing at its IIM-1 facility in Chitose, Hokkaido, with plans to begin 2nm mass production by fiscal 2027. Rapidus works with IBM on process development and with IMEC in Belgium on broader R&D, and NEDO is involved in design projects alongside Fujitsu and IBM Japan. It was initially backed by eight major Japanese companies — Toyota, Sony, NTT, NEC, SoftBank, Denso, Kioxia, and MUFG — and early confirmed customers include Fujitsu and Tenstorrent. The government has become a major backer through sizeable R&D support and a February 2026 investment that left it with 11.5% of voting rights and a golden share veto. Rapidus is positioning itself as an alternative foundry offering small-volume, quick-turnaround services, but faces challenges securing steady customer orders and improving yields given competitors like TSMC and Samsung began 2nm volume production in 2025.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2025

Sonocharge Energy develops a platform that uses acoustic-wave induced electrolytic motion to improve charging performance, extend cycle life, and enhance safety in lithium‑ion batteries. The company positions its solution as a reduced‑cost approach for e‑mobility and various energy storage applications. Recent customer-funded lab tests reportedly showed significantly improved battery performance using Sonocharge's technology. The company plans to use the new funding to advance core R&D, grow its team in a new Silicon Valley location, and optimize solutions with customers for specific use cases. Sonocharge is accelerating commercial deployment with key EV and battery manufacturers to extend range and performance. The company emphasizes scalability and commercialization as near-term priorities.

Participated · Seed · Nov 2024

Tozero operates a pilot plant in Germany that reclaims lithium and graphite from black mass using a water-based carbonation recovery process that avoids harsh acids and (it says) emits ~70% less than mining. Its pilot currently processes nine tonnes of lithium-ion battery waste per day and delivered its first commercial batch of high-purity lithium in April, nine months after opening the pilot. The company is building toward a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) industrial deployment to enter continuous production and then scale plants it intends to operate itself across Germany, Europe and later North America. Tozero says its process is lean, efficient and protected as a trade secret rather than patented, and the founders emphasize speed, iterative hardware development and process innovation. The startup claims strong customer demand, noting over a billion euros of off-take interest for its material. Tozero was founded in 2022 and positions recycling as critical to meeting projected lithium demand growth and upcoming EU regulatory recovery requirements. Tozero is developing a novel recycling process to recover critical materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt from lithium-ion batteries. The company intends to return recovered raw materials to the market as fresh battery-grade inputs for battery producers to reduce the battery industry's environmental footprint. Tozero has raised €3.5 million in a pre-seed financing round led by Berlin-based Atlantic Labs, with Verve Ventures, Possible Ventures, angels and founder-investors participating. Notable participants include former VW board member Jochem Heizmann and co-founders of Personio and FINN. With the funding, Tozero will build a prototype plant in Munich, a region where one-third of Europe’s lithium-ion batteries are planned to be produced by 2030. Co-founders Sarah Fleischer and Dr. Ksenija Milicevic Neumann have technical support and advice from Prof. Bernd Friedrich of RWTH Aachen.

Participated · Series A · Sep 2024

Reverion designs and builds a reversible, carbon-negative biogas power plant based on hydrogen fuel cells and a novel system architecture and process design. The design reduces system losses, integrates CO2 separation so the unit emits only a liquefiable CO2 stream for transport or sequestration, and can produce renewable natural gas or green hydrogen when run in reverse. Founders Stephan Herrmann and Felix Fischer say the technology can be as much as 80% more efficient than existing biogas plants and produce double the output of conventional gas engines. Primary customers are farmers, who can sell liquified CO2 as a new revenue stream and more easily meet environmental regulations, and industrial plants that can integrate the units with thermal and chemical processes. The company reported a $100 million backlog of orders. A $62 million Series A will let Reverion begin industrial-scale production of its power plants. Reverion is a Munich-based climate tech spin-off of the Technical University of Munich led by CEO Stephan Herrmann and COO Felix Fischer. The company develops container-based 100 kW and 500 kW power plants that run on biogas and can also operate with hydrogen. Its plants produce pure CO2 as a byproduct of power generation, enabling CO2-negative operation, and are reversible to convert excess renewable electricity into hydrogen or methane. Reverion plans to use the recent funding to expand production of its 100 kW and 500 kW plants. The company raised EUR8.5M from investors including UVC Partners, Green Generation Fund, Extantia Capital, Doral Energy‑Tech Ventures and Landwärme GmbH. It has also received EUR12M of research capital to develop the plants. Reverion, born inside the Technical University of Munich and based in Eresing, Germany, has spent seven years developing a system to extract more electricity from biogas using existing fuel-cell technology. The company captures and processes gas that typically exits fuel cells unused, re‑increases its quality in two steps, and recycles it into the cell to raise effective efficiency. Reverion says this approach can raise output from roughly 60% to about 80% — a ~20 percentage-point improvement — by eliminating the up-to-30% of fuel that normally leaves a cell unused. The core product is modular power-plant units housed in 20-foot shipping containers; each unit is sized to power about 100 households. With $7 million in seed funding, Reverion is preparing to pilot 10 of those modular units and pursue a commercial launch. The seed financing was provided by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, the European Social Fund and XPrize.

Participated · Series B · Mar 2024

EFT commercializes "Emulsion Flow," an innovative solvent-extraction process developed at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency that enables compact, high-throughput, and high-purity separation of rare metals. The company is focusing on lithium-ion battery (LIB) recycling to recover cobalt, nickel, and lithium at low cost and low environmental impact for direct reuse in high-tech industries. EFT plans to accelerate development of a commercial LIB recycling plant, construct a pilot facility, and begin plant construction in 2025 with target commercial operation in 2026. The firm is also expanding a total-support business offering process development, equipment and plant design, licensing, and operations support, and intends to apply Emulsion Flow to environmental pollution issues such as oil and PFAS removal. EFT is strengthening global expansion efforts, targeting APAC and Western markets, and plans to hire technical, business development, corporate, and international staff to support scale-up and potential IPO readiness. Financially, the company reported cumulative funding of approximately ¥2.0 billion following the Series B close.