Deep climate tech startup Barocal has raised a $10m (£7.4m) seed round to accelerate development and scale its engineering team ahead of commercial deployment.
The University of Cambridge spinout is developing next-generation solid-state cooling and heating systems. The startup replaces conventional refrigerant gases with organic barocaloric materials that heat and cool under pressure, improving energy efficiency.
Its mission is to transform how the world cools and heats, reducing emissions, cutting energy demand and enabling more sustainable thermal management across buildings, industry and data centres.
At scale, Barocal says its technology will significantly reduce heating and cooling sector emissions through efficiency gains and avoiding gas refrigerants. The sector is responsible for around 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.
The seed round included participation from World Fund, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures and IP Group, and will be used to make key hires and accelerate commercialisation.
“Barocal has achieved what scientists have struggled to do for decades – a materials breakthrough delivering solid-state materials that finally enable new cooling and heating platform technology that competes with vapour-based incumbents,” says Mark Windeknecht, principal at World Fund.
“We are extremely proud to be supporting this world-leading scientific team as they commercialise.”
Barocal will initially target fast-growing applications, including data centre cooling and commercial refrigeration.
