Industrial decarbonization project developer Zero Industrial announced that it has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round, with proceeds to be used to accelerate its development of thermal energy storage projects to replace fossil fuels with electricity.

Industrial heating uses high amounts of energy, often from fossil fuel-based sources, in order to transform materials into products such as metals and plastics. While solutions to replace fossil-based energy sources have emerged, including renewable energy, electrification and hydrogen, many are not available at scale for industrial use due to current grid limitations.

Founded in 2024 by Ted Kniesche and Jim McDermott, Charleston, South Carolina-based Zero Industrial uses thermal energy storage technologies to eliminate the combustion of fossil fuels for heat and steam production at industrial facilities. The company’s offerings include full project development services, including technology selection, project design and engineering of each TES system, with Zero Industrial also fully financing each project and selling clean heat or steam to its customers under a long-term Heat-as-a-Service contract, eliminating the need for upfront capital outlay by customers.

Zero Industrial said that the financing comes as it is actively originating and developing projects in the U.S. and Canada and seeking industrial customers looking to decarbonize their industrial heat.

Kniesche said:

“We are rapidly originating project opportunities with industrial customers who want to reduce their energy costs and lower their carbon footprint by using stored electricity as thermal energy, instead of burning gas, fuel oil or coal.”

The financing round was led by clean tech venture capital fund Evok Innovations, with participation from private equity firm Rusheen Capital Management.

Naynika Chaubey, Partner at Evok Innovations, said:

“We are excited to partner with Ted and his team at Zero Industrial to build a market leading development business that will accelerate the decarbonization of industry – one of the hardest to abate sectors of our economy. We continue to see massive growth from cheap, intermittent renewable generation, coupled with increasingly impacted electrical grids. Zero Industrial capitalizes on these market challenges by deploying thermal storage projects that will shift curtailed or off-peak clean electricity to baseload heat and steam used by industries globally.”