By GREGORY ZELLER //
A north-of-the-border venture-capital fund is doubling down on a Long Island-based carbon-reduction innovator.
Canadian VC firm Natural Gas Innovation Fund is increasing its investment in Stony Brook-based ThermoLift – the first company in which NGIF Cleantech Ventures, the parent fund’s $35 million seed fund for natural-gas innovations, has scaled up its capital outlay.
ThermoLift – the poster child for Stony Brook University’s commercialization ecosystem, founded in 2012 by international engineering stalwart Peter Hofbauer and current Director Paul Schwartz – is no stranger to Canadian interests.
The company’s flagship Thermal Compression Climate Control Device – a fuel-flexible heat pump that leverages a unique thermodynamic process call the Hofbauer Cycle to create both cost and energy efficiencies – is currently embarking on its first North American pilot program in concert with FortisBC Energy, an energy-solutions provider supplying natural gas, electricity and renewable energy to more than 1 million British Columbia customers.
And of course, the NGIF has bought into ThermoLift before, announcing an investment of $426,500 in March 2020 in support of the then-future pilot program. That initial transaction later grew to $525,000 as the trial run – which is now installing the advanced fuel pump (TC3, for short) in a carefully curated cross-section of Canadian residential properties – grew in scope.
The NGIF’s new, undisclosed investment is the latest in a long series of grants and awards backing the TC3’s development and commercialization. And it represents a first for the NGIF, which has never before scaled-up an initial investment but is “excited to be investing in ThermoLift,” according to NGIF Cleantech Ventures Managing Partner John Adams.
“Their natural gas heat pump is an efficient, low-emission, cost-effective product meeting a variety of energy needs,” Adams, also the NGIF Capital Corp. president and CEO, said in a statement. “We are confident that ThermoLift will emerge as a market leader in this space.”
And ThermoLift, naturally, is “proud to be the first of NGIF Cleantech Ventures’ investments,” according to Schwartz.
“This partnership reflects our shared ambition toward a low-carbon economy,” the co-founder added.
