Repsol Foundation presents the seven startups joining its business accelerator

• Repsol Foundation has selected seven new startups to support for one year as part of its Entrepreneurs Fund.
• The selected startups offer innovative solutions for driving the Energy Transition in fields including low-carbon technologies and circular economy, hydrogen production and use, biotechnology, digitalization, and artificial intelligence.
• Repsol Foundation has been driving innovative tech solutions for a decade, and the Entrepreneurs Fund is now a renowned, well-established, and efficient initiative for accelerating the Energy Transition.
• The chosen companies will receive financial support of up to €120,000 for one year, as well as high-level technical and business advice from an expert team of mentors. They will also be given the chance to conduct pilot tests with Repsol.

Today, Repsol Foundation presented the seven startups selected for the 10th edition of its business accelerator, the Entrepreneurs Fund. These companies have been chosen after an exhaustive assessment process and were selected out of a total of 713 candidates from 20 countries.

The selected projects will receive up to €120,000 in financial funding for one year, and will be advised by Repsol technology experts and a team of professional mentors boasting extensive experience and expertise in the field of energy and business management. They will also be given the chance to test their new technologies in a real environment by conducting pilot tests at the company's own facilities and industrial plants or by means of proofs of concept at the Repsol Technology Lab, the company's research center.

The chosen startups were presented at an online event attended by Antonio Brufau, Repsol Chairman, and Pratima Rangarajan, CEO of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) – Climate Investments.

Antonio Brufau highlighted the great challenge facing society in its quest for a more decarbonized world and reaffirmed Repsol's commitment to the Energy Transition and the Objectives of the Paris Agreement. He said that to take on this huge challenge, which is as global as it is complex, “it is critical that we focus on technology, innovation, digitalization and talent. And focusing on talent means objectively backing innovative startups and small companies like those we are supporting through the Repsol Foundation Entrepreneurs Fund”.

“At Repsol, we are currently in a process of strategic transformation with a great deal of emphasis on energy efficiency, circular economy in industrial processes, new low-emissions fuels, renewable energy, hydrogen, and CO2 capture”, said the Repsol Chairman.

Pratima Rangarajan, CEO of the OGCI (Oil and Gas Climate Initiative - Climate Investments), focused her statement on the need to accelerate the transition process towards a low-carbon emissions future and the fundamental role that Entrepreneurial Ecosystems play in driving innovation in the energy industry. The OGCI has some highly relevant sector-based initiatives underway.

Selected startups

The tenth edition of the Entrepreneurs Fund has garnered a lot of international interest in the form of over 700 candidates from 20 different countries. The hopefuls stood out for the quality of their proposals in the different areas of interest, particularly those focused on emissions reduction through carbon capture, use, and storage technologies (CCUS), hydrogen production and use, fuels, as well as the use of digitalization and artificial intelligence to improve efficiency in the industry.

The seven companies to receive the support of the Entrepreneurs Fund starting this September are:

• Alchemr (United States): green hydrogen production by means of low-cost electrolyzers.
• Beautifuel (Slovenia): production of renewable energy using waste and refuse.
• Industrial Analytics (Germany): artificial intelligence applied to the maintenance of industrial equipment.
• Mission Zero (Great Britain): technologies for direct CO2 capture from the air. 
• Nulife (Canada): Catalysts for producing renewable fuels. 
• Qualifying Photovoltaics (Spain): a digital platform based on Big Data and algorithms for managing and optimizing photovoltaic assets.
• Trovant (Spain): technology for converting biogas into biomethane.   

Ten years driving the future of energy

Repsol Foundation has been supporting entrepreneurship for a decade, with a focus on new technologies for the world of energy. It is now a renowned and effective initiative for driving the development of the most innovative solutions and doing its bit to speed up the Energy Transition.

Since its launch in 2011, the Entrepreneurs Fund has contributed to the development of 67 innovative startups in the fields of low-carbon emissions technologies, circular economy, sustainable mobility, and digitalization for optimizing and monitoring energy industry processes.

Throughout those ten years, the companies supported by Repsol Foundation have developed more than 820 prototypes, registered approximately 200 patents, and have received over €175 million in public and private funding.

For the tenth edition that was launched in January of this year, 713 proposals were received, primarily from Spain, United Kingdom, Canada, United States, and the Netherlands.