Catalysts drive 90% of today’s chemical processes, yet as the first Paris Agreement 2030 deadline for NetZero nears, the energy industry is still in urgent need of new catalysts to facilitate this transition.
Current reliance on a manual, “human centric” ‘design, make, test, analyze’ (DMTA) approach within the chemical industry remains an obstacle, resulting in slow cycles and a low success rate. Additionally, R&D spending in the chemical industry is low, with leading companies spending less than 5%, some even as low as 1% of revenue on chemical R&D. Since this fundamental energy transition in chemistry requires not just the optimization of existing processes, but completely novel catalysts for reactions not currently done at scale by the industry, we believe that the status quo in the industry is insufficient, requiring new innovation to disrupt catalyst R&D.
We are therefore excited to announce our lead investment in Dunia (RAC VII), a paradigm shifting materials discovery platform, which is harnessing the power of AI and robotic automation to revolutionize chemical R&D and catalysis discovery. We are joined by co-lead investors Elaia, alongside Pace Ventures, Kindred Capital, Deep Science Ventures, Anglo American, and the EIC, bringing the company’s total funding to $11.5 million.
a better, greener chemical industry
“Most materials we need to reach NetZero haven’t been invented yet.” - Alex Hammer, Dunia CEO
For Dunia, one of the biggest challenges of our generation is shifting away from fossil fuels to build a circular economy. That’s their long-term vision is to decarbonise chemical processes to build a business case for the energy transition and enable a better, greener chemical industry.
How?
Dunia’s novel AI-driven lab automation platform uniquely combines AI chemical design, robotic lab execution and an iterative, active learning process into a single platform to create a closed-loop system which can autonomously designmake, test, and analyze new catalysts. .
This in-built “active learning process” allows the platform to improve with each cycle, learning from both failed and successful experiments, and enables the design part of the platform to make increasingly smarter choices as the discovery campaign progresses. Dunia’s vision is to create a fully autonomous platform that can perform discovery campaigns autonomously, which would for the first time enable R&D campaigns to be run in a highly scalable way, like manufacturing assembly lines.
The platform also addresses one of the key concerns when it comes to AI: data quality.
Due to Dunia’s high degree of standardization and automation, this approach generates reliably and reproducible data, which is crucial for machine learning. The scientific discipline of chemistry as a whole, is plagued by low quality data, irreproducible methods and complex processes which until today, were hard to automate. As a result, there is a scarcity of data that can be used to create reliable machine learning models. Dunia is able to overcome this issue by not just engineering state of the art AI algorithms trained on available data, but by owning the entire process, from high quality data generation, to model training and execution, all in one platform.
catalyzing the global energy transition
As a key player in the green energy transition, the chemical industry is vital to achieving ambitious climate goals, many of which depend on the discovery of new catalysts. However, less than 1% of the industry’s revenue is currently being invested in chemical R&D. For climate-critical processes like electrochemical CO2 reduction, selectivity remains an unresolved challenge that requires a new generation of breakthrough catalysts, which existing internal processes are not fit to produce.
In short, the market is ripe for disruption.
The Dunia platform enables chemical industry partners to access new catalysts faster and more efficiently, helping the sector transition from fossil-fuel dependence to green, renewable sources for chemical building blocks and power infrastructure.
With their strong cross-disciplinary and complimentary skills, Dunia’s world-class team are up to this game-changing task. Alex Hammer (CEO) and Marcus Tze-Kiat (CTO) completed their PhD in AI chemical design and chemical automation, respectively, in the world’s leading automated chemistry lab working with Prof. Lee Cronin, while Ahmed Ismail (COO) completed a PhD in catalysis design and brings over a decade of experience in the chemical and energy industry, managing major catalysis R&D projects in the industry. The powerful combination of an expert founding team and an exceptional product has been magnetic for attracting top talent in chemical AI and automation, and with plans to double its team with the latest funding, it’s just the beginning.
a truly massive market
Dunia’s primary focus is on the massive $324B power-to-x market, which comprises conversion technologies that turn electricity into carbon-neutral synthetic fuels, such as hydrogen, synthetic natural gas, liquid fuels, or chemicals. However, the state of internal R&D within the chemical industry has meant that there is a preference to acquire external innovation and production capacity over internal innovation, creating a growing market opportunity for innovators like Dunia to partner with established chemistry and energy enterprises to bring their technology to the market.
Speaking on the investment, Michael Sidler said: “With humanity's fast-growing need for power and the reliance on petrochemicals, the discovery of novel ways to create sustainable fuels and chemicals has become crucial. We need radical disruption to the existing R&D processes to create novel catalyzing agents for the efficient synthesis of such fuels. Dunia's AI-driven lab approach is the foundation of the discovery of these world-changing catalysts.”
The global shift toward green energy has also unlocked significant public funding for this sector. A notable example is the EU's Innovation Fund, which has allocated €40 billion to climate-focused technologies. As one of the most innovative companies in this sector, Dunia has already been a beneficiary of significant awards from the EIC and IBB.
We look forward to working closely with the team to drive forward their growth and accelerate the transition to a clean energy future!
Read more about the investment on Tech.eu.