The Blavatnik Prize for Innovation is a £1m prize fund awarded by QantX to pre-investment startups, providing up to £50,000 in non-dilutive funding and guidance from the QantX team.
The prize supports businesses to unlock commercial barriers to their innovative technology, and provides a route to equity investment. Climate-i, who are developing technology to reduce fluorinated gas (F-gas) emissions, received £25,000 through the Blavatnik Innovation Fund this year.
Richard Haycock CEO QantX says, “we are delighted to award this prize to a company who has the potential to make a significant impact on F-gas emissions. Tackling the gases that are significantly more damaging than CO2 is a necessary step in a multi- faceted battle on climate change.”
Elinor Wakefield, Co-Founder and CEO at Climate-i, says: “This grant is proving a very important bridge for us between inception and commercialisation – and this will help get us to a place where we can close a pre-seed round.
“We’ve been awarded R&D grants from the Cornwall Growth Hub and Cranfield University’s Future Frontiers Fund from Cranfield University that support our R&D. Alongside those, this grant will allow us to test the product both in the lab and with potential customers to get real world feedback.
“We already have expressions of interest in our technology from National Grid Electricity Transmission and EDF UK, so this is a big step forward.”
Elinor met her Co-Founder Sam Lanyon at the Carbon 13 Venture Builder Accelerator in Cambridge in 2023, which brings together experienced in individuals to form new high-impact businesses to tackle climate change.
Following a career leading international climate teams for the UK Government, Elinor connected with Sam over their shared desire to build a scalable business that had a positive impact on the planet.
“Sam is an electronic engineer – he is an inventor at heart”, continues Elinor. “Most recently he has designed a micro-climate sensor, which is used by scientists to track temperatures in remote places for their experiments.”
The pair came together over what they describe as a ‘neglected and often overlooked’ climate issue – F-gas emissions.
F-gases are used in cooling, refrigeration and electricity systems globally, and in electronics and semiconductor manufacture. They are extremely potent greenhouse gases, often 1000s of times more warming than CO2.
They represent around 5% of global annual gas emissions, even more than aviation. But, as the team acknowledges, there are not many people working on them as a climate issue.
Elinor explains: “In the 80s, an international agreement called the Montreal Protocol phased out CFCs – a category of F-gases then used in spray cans and fridges – because they were depleting the ozone layer.
“This process ran separately from the global climate process that led to the Paris Agreement, and F-gases ended up somewhat side-lined in climate debates. The Montreal Protocol has been updated to phase down HFCs – successors to CFCs which don’t harm the ozone layer, but do harm the climate – but other F-gases still don’t receive much international attention.
“The gases can be found everywhere, inside equipment such as air conditioners as well as in diverse industrial settings. It’s very hard to get them ‘back in the bottle’ once they’ve been distributed that widely.”
This is where Climate-i come in. They are starting with a gas called SF6 that is used in electricity networks as an insulator for high voltages and is prone to leak from equipment in substations.
Historically electricity networks would simply top-up this gas if it leaked. However, due to the environmental impact of the gas there is now a lot more attention on it – especially from regulators – and a lot more pressure for companies to stop leaks.
“Our technology will not only allow better monitoring of leaks, but also enable capture of them. This is what makes us stand out,” says Elinor.