Antora Energy secured $550 million in oversubscribed Series C funding, co-led by G2 Venture Partners and Eclipse, to expand U.S. manufacturing and accelerate deployment of its carbon based thermal batteries for data centers and industry.
Antora Energy closed an oversubscribed $550 million Series C funding round, co-led by G2 Venture Partners and Eclipse. New investors included Ribbit Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Activate Capital, John Doerr (chairman of Kleiner Perkins), Westly Group, StepStone Group, and Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures. Existing investors participating included Decarbonization Partners (the BlackRock-Temasek joint venture), Impact Science Ventures, Trust Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Lowercarbon Capital.
This brings Antora’s total equity funding to approximately $770 million since its founding (around 2017–2018), with some reports of broader corporate and project financing approaching $1 billion. The company did not disclose a post money valuation (one secondary report suggested roughly $2.47 billion, but this is unconfirmed by primary sources). Prior major rounds included a $150 million Series B in February 2024 led by Decarbonization Partners.
How will Antora Energy use the funds?
The capital will fund expansion of domestic manufacturing capacity, establishment of a second U.S. manufacturing hub (beyond the existing San Jose, California campus, which was recently expanded into a three building facility and ranks among the country’s larger battery gigafactories), acceleration of large scale project deployments, and strengthening of the domestic supply chain.
Antora is targeting a growing pipeline of signed agreements with hyperscalers (data center operators), industrial companies (biofuels, chemicals, food and beverage, and others), and utilities. The funding supports rapid scaling to meet surging electricity demand from AI driven data centers and the need for firm, low cost industrial heat and power.
What is Antora Energy’s technology?
Antora develops modular thermal batteries that store low cost, intermittent electricity (from renewables or the grid) as high temperature heat in insulated blocks of solid carbon, then deliver it on demand as process heat or electricity.
Key technical attributes:
- Carbon blocks are resistively heated to up to 2,400°C (4,352°F).
- Energy is stored for multiple days with low losses.
- Heat transfer at these temperatures occurs primarily via radiation (light), enabling efficient delivery without complex mechanical systems.
- Modules are factory built (shipping container scale), use abundant, low cost, non critical materials (carbon is a common industrial byproduct with established supply chains), avoid lithium and other constrained minerals, and deploy rapidly without multi year construction.
- The systems are energy-dense (roughly four times that of electrochemical batteries by volume in some comparisons), scalable from megawatts to gigawatts, and suitable for continuous industrial loads or power generation (via steam or thermophotovoltaics in some configurations).
This positions the technology particularly well for hard to decarbonize industrial processes requiring high grade heat (steel, cement, chemicals, refining, pulp/paper, etc.) and for data centers seeking firm power amid grid interconnection delays.
The raise follows the commissioning (begun May 2026) of Project Big Stone: a 5 GWh thermal battery system (more than 200 modules) at POET’s biofuels/ethanol plant in Big Stone City, South Dakota. It advanced from empty lot to energy delivery in under 12 months and is described as one of the world’s largest battery storage projects and the largest thermal energy storage facility globally (accounting for the large majority of estimated global thermal storage capacity at the time).
The system charges primarily on cheap wind power and supplies steam to displace coal fired boilers at the plant. Antora has also expanded manufacturing and created/supported hundreds of U.S. manufacturing and construction jobs (welders, electricians, pipefitters, machinists).
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The funding arrives amid explosive AI/data center electricity demand that is outpacing grid capacity and interconnection queues, alongside ongoing industrial decarbonization needs (industry accounts for a significant share of energy use and emissions). Thermal storage offers multi day duration, high temperature capability, fast deployment, and cost advantages over lithium-ion for certain applications, without relying on critical minerals.
Antora competes in the thermal energy storage space with companies such as Rondo Energy and others using bricks, molten salts, or alternative media. Its differentiators emphasize ultra high temperatures, carbon’s material properties (conductivity, capacity, stability, cost ~$1/kWh of storage medium in some analyses), modularity, and dual heat/power output. Investor commentary highlighted Antora’s demonstrated speed of manufacturing and deployment as key to addressing current bottlenecks.
Cleantech venture funding has been relatively restrained in recent years compared with earlier peaks; this $550 million round ranks among the largest of 2026 in the sector.
CEO and co-founder Andrew Ponec stated: “From factories to data centers, energy is the bottleneck to industrial growth. Antora has shown we can help break that bottleneck, delivering energy fast, at massive scale, with American innovation.” Investors from Eclipse and G2 emphasized the company’s transition from technology proof to scaled manufacturing and on time, on budget deployment.
The round validates Antora’s commercial progress and positions it to capitalize on concurrent demand from data centers and industry while expanding U.S. based production capacity.
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