Working away on his PhD in Munich only a few years ago, Stephan Herrmann (now a doctor) couldn’t have conceived of a time when his idea for a carbon-negative power plant would attract millions in funding. But now, together with Reverion co-founder Felix Fischer, he has a $100 million backlog of orders for his invention and a fresh $62 million in the form of a Series A funding round. 

The idea behind Reverion’s power plant is simple enough: It uses biogas — basically agricultural waste like food or manure — to generate power. However, over the course of his PhD and later real-world tests, Herrmann figured out how to make the plant as much as 80% more efficient than existing biogas plants. That meant it was producing double the output of conventional gas engines, and producing renewable natural gas or green hydrogen, making it effectively “reversible.”

Over a call with TechCrunch, Herrmann outlined how he did it: “We work with hydrogen fuel cells, and created a new system architecture around those. And the process design is very different to normal biogas power plants.”

That difference in architecture and process design, he said, helps his plant eliminate losses in the system and increase efficiency. “It becomes carbon negative, because we have integrated CO2 separation. The unit itself doesn’t produce gases like an engine, other than a CO2 stream that can be liquified and made transportable. That liquified CO2 can then be transported to any other industry, such as the chemicals industry, or it can be sequestered,” explained Herrmann.

Reverion’s Series A round was led by Energy Impact Partners (EIP) and saw participation from Honda and the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund). 

This funding lets Reverion begin industrial-scale production of its power plants.

“What Reverion has accomplished is nothing short of exceptional,” said Ashwin Shashindranath, partner at Energy Impact Partners, in a statement. “It exemplifies the market traction we look for in emerging climate tech companies,” he added.

Reverion’s primary customers are farmers and industrial plants. Farmers are attracted to the technology because it can double the output of existing biogas plants and lets them sell the liquified CO2, giving them a new revenue stream. For industrial customers, the startup’s units can be integrated with thermal and chemical processes, thus providing both heat and various gases for on-site use. 

Herrmann said farmers with biogas plants often struggle to comply with environmental regulations around traditional biogas power plants, but because of Reverion’s ultra-low environmental impact, they can comply with regulations much more easily. 

That said, Reverion does have competition, largely in the shape of the much larger Bloom Energy in the U.S. The difference with Bloom Energy is that its main innovation is the system architecture and it does carbon capture. 

“We compete against other, similar engines, but the technology is quite different,” Herrmann said. “Ours directly removes carbon from the atmosphere, replaces fossil-fuel power plants, and uses renewable gases for excess power. All that has a huge potential for positive environmental impact.”

“Also, when our unit runs in reverse, it uses excess power to make green hydrogen. That can replace ‘gray’ hydrogen from fossil sources,” he added.

Existing investors Extantia Capital, UVC Partners, Green Generation Fund, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, and Possible Ventures also joined the round.