RIFT raises €114 million for the world’s first commercial iron fuel project
Innovative technology aims to decarbonize industrial heat at scale
RIFT has secured €113.8 million in financing to advance its Iron Fuel Technology toward commercial deployment. The funding consists of an €83.1 million Series B round led by PGGM, a Dutch pension fund investor, with participation from Invest-NL, the Dutch national investment institution supported by the InvestEU programme, and regional development agency Oost NL. Rubio Impact Ventures, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM), and the Energietransitiefonds Rotterdam also participated. In addition, RIFT has been selected for a €30.7 million project under the EU Innovation Fund.
At €83.1 million, the Series B round is exceptional for a hardware and cleantech company at this stage. The financing enables the transition from industrial pilot projects to commercial realization of the technology. The investor consortium, which previously backed RIFT, continues its support in this new round.
RIFT focuses its iron fuel technology on one of the biggest challenges in the energy transition: the decarbonisation of industrial heat.
“As a consortium, we have closely followed RIFT’s development and see strong potential for tangible industrial impact”, said Tim van den Brule, Investment Director at PGGM Infrastructure. “Many industrial innovations stall in the transition from demonstration to realization. We have deliberately chosen a financing structure that provides capital through to execution, enabling the first commercial project to move into operation.”
RIFT’s selection under the EU Innovation Fund, the European Union’s funding program for large-scale innovative decarbonization projects, highlights the European relevance of the technology. In this round, 61 projects were selected out of 359 applications.
Sustainable alternative to fossil fuels RIFT focuses on one of the most challenging aspects of the energy transition: the decarbonization of industrial heat. Sectors such as food processing, chemicals, and building materials require continuous high-temperature heat for their production processes. Today, this heat is largely generated using fossil fuels, primarily natural gas.
For many of these applications, electrification is not readily deployable due to high temperature requirements, large power demand, and limited grid capacity. A scalable, CO₂-free alternative is therefore an important condition for further decarbonizing industry.
RIFT provides this alternative through a circular energy carrier based on iron. By replacing natural gas in industrial heat processes, high-temperature heat can be generated without direct CO₂ emissions.
Next phase “Over the past years, we have demonstrated that Iron Fuel Technology performs reliably in an industrial environment,” said Mark Verhagen, CEO of RIFT. “We are now moving into the next phase, focusing on preparation and execution of our first commercial project. This represents a concrete step toward decarbonizing industrial heat at scale.”
With this financing, RIFT will develop its first commercial production facility. From this facility, iron fuel will be supplied to multiple industrial customers that integrate Iron Fuel Boilers into their heat processes. The first commercial contract was signed in mid-2025 with Kingspan Unidek, one of the customers participating in the project. The ambition is to be operational in 2029.
The project is expected to deliver approximately 340 GWh of industrial heat per year. Over a 15-year lifetime, this amounts to roughly 5 TWh of decarbonized heat, resulting in total avoided CO₂ emissions of over one million tonnes.
“Since 2022, ETFR has joined as the first investor alongside Rubio and BOM, with the objective of stimulating demand in the hydrogen market and thereby realising economies of scale, enabling affordable industrial electrification based on high-temperature industrial heat, and at the same time contributing to solutions for the current grid congestion challenges. These three challenges all play a key role in the raw materials and energy transition for both existing and emerging value chains in Europe’s largest port and industrial complex.”
— Jesse in ’t Velt, Senior Investment Manager ETFR
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About RIFT
RIFT is an Eindhoven-based technology scale-up founded in 2020 by Mark Verhagen, Vincent Seijger and Lex Scheepers. The company develops and deploys iron fuel technology to decarbonize industrial heat. With approximately 75 employees, RIFT is advancing the commercial rollout of its circular iron fuel system in energy-intensive industries. The company aims to contribute at global scale to the structural reduction of industrial CO₂ emissions.
About Energy Transition Fund Rotterdam
The Energy Transition Fund Rotterdam is the investment fund of the municipality of Rotterdam, with a size of €100 million. The revolving fund finances innovative companies and large sustainable projects that can contribute to Rotterdam’s energy transition and circular economy. The city aims to reduce CO2 emissions, improve air quality, and reduce the use of raw materials with this fund. InnovationQuarter acts as the fund manager for the Energy Transition Fund Rotterdam.
