Rivan Raises $30M to Scale Synthetic Fuel in Europe

Jan de Vries · 2026-04-20

A UK-based startup called Rivan just landed a massive $30 million (converted from EUR 28.7 million) to ramp up domestic synthetic fuel production across Europe. The round was led by IQ Capital, with support from Plural. This fresh injection comes just 10 months after their $12 million (EUR 11.4 million) seed round, which was also led by Plural and backed by investors like 20VC, NFDG, and Stripe founders Patrick and John Collison. ### What Rivan Does Founded in 2024 by Harvey Hodd, Rivan makes synthetic fuels for industries that simply can't be electrified at scale or at fossil-fuel prices. Think steel mills, cement plants, chemical factories, and aviation. The goal? Drive down the cost of synthetic fuels so they actually undercut traditional fossil fuels for heavy industry. That could remove gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere over time. ### Why Europe Needs This Europe imports nearly 60% of its energy, which leaves it exposed to wild price swings and supply shocks. The war in the Middle East recently doubled wholesale gas prices, pushing countries like the UK, France, Germany, and Spain into energy emergencies. Rivan's answer is domestic synthetic fuel production, starting with Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG). They aim to produce SNG at costs competitive with fossil fuels and at scales that could meet entire industrial demand for nations like the UK, Spain, and France. ### How Rivan Plans to Win The company claims it vertically integrates every step of production—from renewable energy generation and hydrogen/CO2 capture to reactor synthesis and gas-grid injection. All hardware is designed and manufactured in the UK from scratch, which lets them move fast with a domestic supply chain. Since their seed round, Rivan has hit some impressive milestones: - Their UK-based SNG plant is now being commissioned, and they believe it'll produce the most cost-effective SNG ever. - Customer contracts tripled, and they've sold their entire planned production through 2029. - They leased a new 50,000-square-foot manufacturing facility called Production Base 1. ### What's Next With this new funding, Rivan plans to accelerate deployment, scale R&D, and open that new manufacturing facility. Over the next 12 months, they'll focus on Project Steadfast, a 15MW plant in Wiltshire that's set to become the largest SNG plant in Europe—and the first to inject SNG into the UK gas grid. They'll also scale production at Production Base 1, aiming to churn out up to 50MW per year of hardware. Heavy R&D investments across direct-air capture, electrolysis, reactors, and solar should help them challenge fossil-fuel pricing within 2-3 years. > "We're not just building a fuel—we're building the entire supply chain from scratch to make synthetic fuels cheaper than fossils faster than anyone thought possible." — Harvey Hodd, Founder ### The Bigger Picture Rivan's approach is a bet on domestic energy independence and climate tech that actually competes on price. If they pull it off, synthetic fuels could become a real alternative for heavy industries that have few other decarbonization options. Europe's energy fragility isn't going away, and startups like Rivan are positioning themselves to fill that gap with homegrown solutions.