Kodiaq Technologies, a University of Cambridge spin-out developing organic electrolytes for long-duration energy storage, has closed a EUR 1.08 million funding round, according to Finsmes. The investor was not disclosed.
The financing (reported as £850,000, equivalent to about EUR 1.08 million) was backed by more than 20 high-net-worth investors from climate tech and deep tech. Kodiaq said the round is intended to scale development, enable pilot projects and position the company to pursue a larger funding raise in 2026 aimed at demonstration projects.
A clear signal from the storage arms race
Kodiaq’s round lands in the slipstream of accelerating global demand for long-duration storage, where grid operators and developers need technologies that can shift renewable generation across hours and days rather than minutes. Market forecasts routinely point to energy storage becoming a massive spend category by the end of the decade, driven by decarbonisation, renewables build-out and rising power demand from AI and data centres.
Against that backdrop, capital is increasingly flowing toward chemistries and architectures that reduce reliance on constrained metals and improve cost and scalability. Kodiaq’s proposition fits that theme directly: proprietary organic electrolytes designed to increase energy density and storage capacity in flow batteries, offering a metal-free alternative to lithium and vanadium-based systems.
Why flow batteries are back on the agenda
Flow batteries are attracting renewed interest because they decouple power and energy. That makes them well-suited to long-duration applications, with the potential for lower degradation and easier scaling of storage capacity through larger electrolyte tanks.
The constraint has been economics and performance at scale. Kodiaq is targeting that bottleneck through organic electrolytes that it says deliver materially higher energy absorption than incumbent vanadium technology. If validated in pilots, higher energy density can translate into smaller system footprints and better project economics, while a metal-free design reduces exposure to commodity price swings and supply chain concentration.
Cambridge IP and commercial leadership
Kodiaq is founded on patented research from the University of Cambridge and was co-created by Professor Oren Scherman, Dr Kamil Sokolowski and Dr David Fyfe. Fyfe previously led Cambridge Display Technology through a NASDAQ listing and a $285 million sale, a track record that matters in deep tech where technical novelty must be paired with disciplined commercialisation.
The company positions its team as specialists in organic electrolytes for flow batteries, with the new capital earmarked for the practical work of moving from lab performance to repeatable systems engineering and customer-relevant pilots.
What the round funds, and what comes next
At EUR 1.08 million, this is an early-stage, execution-focused raise. The stated objectives are:
- Scaling development of the proprietary organic electrolyte platform
- Launching pilot projects to prove performance in real-world operating conditions
- Preparing for a larger 2026 raise targeted at demonstration projects
For long-duration storage technologies, pilots are the critical value inflection point. They expose durability, cycling behaviour, balance-of-plant requirements and total cost dynamics that are hard to validate in controlled settings.
Risks and the key proof points
The main risk is not the market. It is the engineering translation from strong lab claims to bankable systems. Flow battery projects must demonstrate predictable lifetime performance and robust operational parameters to win utility-scale adoption.
Kodiaq’s near-term proof points will be pilot results that confirm energy density gains, stable cycling and a clear route to competitive levelised cost of storage. If the company can show those metrics with credible partners, it will be aligned with a market that is actively searching for scalable, less metal-dependent storage options.
For the UK’s deep tech ecosystem, the round is also a familiar but important pattern: university IP, experienced commercial leadership and climate-focused private capital combining to push a hardware-led innovation toward deployment.