Ionech raises €2.3 million to move air-to-electricity technology into pilots with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Oxfordshire-based Ionech, a clean-energy tech company developing a process to harness thermal energy from ambient air to generate electricity, has received a €2.3 million (£2 million) Seed investment ClimateTech investor Elbow Beach.

This investment is combined with a €807k (£700k) Innovate UK Grant, will enable the company to advance its Air Voltaic Cell technology from lab-scale development into real-world pilots over the next 24 months, and progress joint development agreements with early-adopting partners.

Thomas Kirk, co-founder of Ionech, shares with EU-Startups: “Energy sits at the foundation of the technology stack. At Ionech we’re building a platform energy technology that will fundamentally change the distribution and consumption of electricity in energy intensive industries. We’re looking forward to our partnership with Elbow Beach as we scale our energy hardware technology to enhance grid resilience, reduce transmission cost and deliver tangible cost savings for the end-user.”

In the wider European clean-energy and ClimateTech landscape of 2025, Ionech’s Seed round aligns with a steady flow of early- and growth-stage capital into technologies focused on electrification, energy efficiency and grid resilience.

In Sweden, Stockholm-based Aira raised €150 million to accelerate the electrification of residential heating, reflecting strong investor appetite for scaling proven clean-energy hardware. France has also seen activity at a later stage, with Paris-based Spark Cleantech securing €30 million to support cleaner energy solutions for heavy industry.

At the earlier end of the market, Spain’s Clevergy raised €3.2 million to scale its smart energy platform, while Dutch startup Zympler closed a €1.5 million round focused on grid optimisation, and Italy’s Renewcast secured €1 million to develop AI-driven renewable energy forecasting.

Alongside company-level rounds, dedicated capital is also being deployed via specialist funds, such as Future Energy Ventures, which closed a €205 million second fund to back energy-tech startups across Europe.

Taken together, these announcements point to well over €400 million moving through adjacent clean-energy sectors during this period, positioning Ionech’s funding as part of a broader pattern of continued investment into both novel energy hardware and enabling energy technologies.

Jonathan Pollock, CEO of Elbow Beach, said: “Ionech represents the kind of bold innovation we aim to support at Elbow Beach. Energy demand is growing, driven by among other things, cooling systems and AI. Ionech is developing ways to harness clean energy from ambient air. Their Air Voltaic Cell technology has the potential to reduce reliance on the grid, lower energy consumption, and deliver tangible benefits across the real economy. We are excited to partner with Ionech as they advance their technology to market.”

Founded in 2016 and based in the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Ionech is a clean energy company turning the latent energy of ambient air into electricity with its Air Voltaic Cell. Designed for high-demand applications and scalable for the grid, their technology reportedly offers low-maintenance, sustainable power solutions that reduce energy costs and carbon emissions.

Ionech’s Air Voltaic Cell technology uses high voltage pulses and field electron emission to generate superoxide ions and convert the thermal and chemical potential energy of ambient air into electrical energy.

Nathan Owen, co-founder and Managing Director of Ionech, says: “We are partnering with Elbow Beach to advance the development of our Air Voltaic Cell technology. Their investment enables the transition from lab-scale development to real-world pilots, including initial work with CCEP’s cooler fleet. It also accelerates our route to market and deployment across energy-intensive applications, such as HVAC and data centres, with the potential to reduce energy consumption, emissions, and reliance on the grid at scale.”​

Ionech aims to integrate the technology initially into high-energy demand devices such as commercial refrigeration, air conditioning and ventilation units, which account for over a quarter of global energy consumption, and eventually at grid scale, saving megatons of CO2 and reducing energy bills.

Partners include Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), where Ionech’s technology could significantly reduce the carbon footprint of drinks coolers among other applications. CCEP was an early investor in Ionech, which plans to demonstrate its first commercial-ready system by 2027.

Joe Franses, VP Sustainability at CCEP, adds: “We continue to be excited about the potential of the technology that Ionech is developing, and how it could support CCEP in accelerating towards our sustainability goals. This latest investment brings us closer to that potential.”

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