Mantle8 raises €31M in Series A funding for natural hydrogen
The round was led by Sandwater and includes Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Bpifrance, IP Group, Wind Capital and Calderion.
Mantle8, the French natural hydrogen exploration company, has raised €31M in Series A funding to leverage its proprietary technology stack across a global exploration and drilling campaign targeting the first commercially exploitable reservoir of high-purity natural hydrogen. The round was led by Sandwater and includes Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Bpifrance, IP Group, Wind Capital and Calderion.This capital will be deployed during the next two years to fund the world’s most advanced natural hydrogen exploration and drilling campaign. Mantle8’s novel technology platform, which is tailored to identify commercially viable natural hydrogen reservoirs, will be employed across its global development pipeline to identify and rank the most promising opportunities. These sites will then be drilled to confirm natural hydrogen accumulations and to evaluate volume, purity, and reservoir quality in support of commercially viable, large-scale production.Hydrogen is a crucial part of our future decarbonised industrial system; however, the importance of its role will depend on its price and origin. Mantle8's novel technology for identifying commercially viable natural hydrogen reserves reduces exploration risk and cost, with economic models projecting production costs as low as €0.80/kg, significantly contributing to a much lower average cost of clean hydrogen supply. This will fundamentally change the hydrogen sector’s economics, unlocking a low-carbon source of sovereign energy supply for Europe as well as other geographies. By cooperating with partners focused on drilling and exploiting target reservoirs, the technology can be rolled out quickly and at scale."This raise reflects the growing conviction among leading clean tech investors that natural hydrogen is a resource worth pursuing at scale," said Emmanuel Masini, Founder and CEO of Mantle8. "The existence of natural hydrogen is a well-established scientific fact; the challenge has been finding free gas accumulations of high-purity hydrogen that are commercially viable. I’m proud that we’ve built and patented an entire technology stack to answer this critical challenge, meeting the expectations of our existing shareholders”, he says.Tom Even Mortensen, Founder and Managing Partner of Sandwater says that Sandwater was built to back exceptional founder teams with the technical depth and operational rigour to solve critical challenges and deliver solutions that lead to a better future.“Mantle8 is exactly that kind of company. Emmanuel and his team have built truly proprietary exploration technology, validated it in the field, and now have a clear plan to move into the commercial phase. Natural hydrogen sits at the intersection of energy transition and resource discovery, two areas where Europe must lead as it seeks energy sovereignty. This is a demanding challenge but with the potential to create a new clean energy source, which is what we need and why we see in Mantle8 the opportunity for outsized impact and return."