HydRegen closes £6m series a led by Genoa Ventures backed by Clean Growth Fund
This article covers HydRegen, a biotech startup, which has closed a £6m first close of a series A funding round to commercialise a bio-based hydrogenation platform. The financing will fund expansion with pharmaceutical and specialty-chemical customers and aims to accelerate adoption of its drop-in biocatalyst across chemicals, agrochemicals, materials and bulk chemicals to cut costs and emissions in chemical manufacturing.
HydRegen, an Oxford- and San Francisco-based biotech startup, has closed a £6m first close of a series A funding round to commercialise a bio-based hydrogenation platform that aims to cut costs and emissions in chemical manufacturing. The financing will fund expansion with existing pharmaceutical and specialty-chemical customers and efforts to accelerate adoption across chemicals, agrochemicals, materials and bulk chemicals.
Why it matters
Hydrogenation is a central step in many chemical processes, often carried out with precious-metal catalysts that can be energy-intensive and hard to optimise under tightening environmental and regulatory pressure. HydRegen says its technology can replace conventional hydrogenation in a “drop-in” form and deliver up to 40% cost savings, addressing both margin pressure and emissions targets at scale.
According to the company, hydrogenation is relevant to 14 to 20% of processes across the industrial chemicals market — a segment measured in the trillions of dollars — so any lower-cost, lower-carbon alternative that integrates with existing plants could shift procurement and production choices for large manufacturers.
Inside the product
HydRegen produces a hydrogenase enzyme via fermentation and formulates it into a suite of proprietary catalyst platforms designed to perform many different hydrogenation reactions. The company says one enzyme platform can be adapted to hundreds of reactions, improving unit economics for cost-sensitive markets.
The key commercial pitch is compatibility: HydRegen positions its catalyst as a plug-and-play alternative that can be introduced into existing infrastructure without requiring plant redesign. The company also highlights catalyst longevity, stating its formulations can turn over millions of times, which is central to delivering the claimed cost and emissions benefits for bulk chemical production.
Who are the investors?
Genoa Ventures led the financing, with participation from Clean Growth Fund and First Imagine! Ventures. Additional support came from Oxford Technology Management, Headington Holdings, Oxonian, Foxglove Capital and Rapid Innovation Group. The round is described as a first close of the series A.
In the announcement, Jenny Rooke, PhD, founder and managing director of Genoa Ventures, said:
The promise of using biology to transform industrial production is enormous, but too often the capital journey doesn’t pencil out. Companies face massive scale-up costs, build infrastructure before they have proven the economics, or develop remarkable technology without solving the full problem a customer needs solved.
With HydRegen, we see all of those pieces come together: great science, solid economics, a path to scale, capital efficiency, and demonstrated customer demand, all led by a team that has spent years building around the realities of how this industry actually works.
The investor mix combines venture capital and industry-facing backers, signalling interest in technologies that can be deployed into existing chemical production lines without extensive capex for customers.
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
- Explore our list of biotech venture capital firms in the UK
- Browse our directory of biotech angel investors in the UK
Founder perspective
In the announcement, Holly Reeve, PhD, CEO and co-founder of HydRegen, said:
Chemical manufacturing has been built around precious-metal catalysts for decades, creating an enormous global infrastructure optimized to use them. Biology can now perform many of the same reactions under far milder conditions, but asking manufacturers to abandon that infrastructure would hinder widespread adoption.
We approached the problem differently. We made biology perform like chemistry, creating biocatalyst-based technology platforms that can drop into the equipment and processes manufacturers already use. Manufacturers can change the catalyst without changing the factory, opening a path to make chemical manufacturing both less expensive and more sustainable at scale.
Reeve frames the company’s route to market around minimal disruption for customers: the technology seeks to replace a catalyst rather than force changes to operators’ plants or processes.
The bigger picture
The £6m first close for HydRegen sits at the intersection of biotech and industrial decarbonisation. The deal reflects growing interest from biotech investors in industrial biocatalysis approaches that promise cost parity or advantage as well as emissions reductions. HydRegen’s Oxford base and San Francisco presence also underline the transatlantic nature of deep-tech biotech funding and commercialisation.
As UK and European manufacturers face tighter sustainability requirements and higher commodity costs, investors appear increasingly willing to back biological alternatives that can be integrated into existing factories. If HydRegen can demonstrate the unit economics and longevity its claims imply at commercial scale, it will test how quickly traditional chemical producers adopt bio-based catalysts.
They've invested in HydRegen
Get to know these biotech investors
| Investors | Investment Focus | Startup Investments | Round Size | Connect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Genoa Ventures( ) | ||||
 Clean Growth Fund( ) This venture capital firm focuses on empowering early-stage entrepreneurs addres... London  | ||||
 First Imagine! Ventures( ) London | ||||
 Oxford Technology Management( ) Oxford Technology has specialised in investing in startup and early-stage techno... Oxford | ||||
 Headington Holdings( ) | ||||
 Foxglove Capital( ) | ||||
| All investors | All investor sectors | All funded startups | All funding rounds |
Click here for a full list of 7,589+ startup investors in the UK