Immaterial Ltd, a Cambridge-based materials engineering company has secured £13.5 million ($18.2 million) in Series A2 funding to accelerate commercialization of its proprietary monolithic metal-organic framework (m-MOF) platform.
The round was led by SLB, with participation from AP Ventures, Moeve, Finindus, and Immaterial’s long-time backer and chairman, Jogchum Brinksma.
The funding marks a critical inflection point for advanced materials innovation in industrial decarbonization. While metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have long been recognized for their exceptional surface area and tunable chemistry, translating those properties into industrial-scale systems has proven elusive. Immaterial claims to have solved that scalability challenge by developing monolithic, ultra-dense MOF structures that retain high adsorption capacity while withstanding the thermal and chemical demands of industrial environments.
CEO Mohammed Khan describes the company’s goal as delivering “an economic transformation” for customers operating in hard-to-abate sectors. By integrating materials science with engineering design, Immaterial seeks to reduce the footprint, capital expenditure (capex), and operational costs (opex) of processes like point-source carbon capture, hydrogen storage, and HVAC energy management. Such efficiency gains are crucial at a time when industrial emissions account for over 30% of global CO₂ output, yet large-scale CCS adoption remains cost-prohibitive in most markets.
Immaterial’s approach centers on transforming conventional MOF powders—typically too fragile and costly for industrial use—into macroscopic monolithic forms. These structures, stable under high pressure and temperature, achieve what the company calls “augmented volumetric effluent effect,” improving overall system throughput. In practical terms, this could enable smaller, cheaper reactors or storage vessels that deliver the same—or greater—performance as bulkier systems using granular sorbents.
The company’s proprietary “Wet-AI” platform underpins its R&D strategy, integrating machine learning, digital materials discovery, and green chemistry synthesis to identify and optimize new MOF formulations. This AI-driven approach allows faster iteration of designs targeted at specific industrial processes and economic constraints. SLB’s Director of Ventures, Arindam Bhattacharya, noted that the progress to date “proves out the platform’s capacity for engineering m-MOF-based solutions across multiple industrial applications.”
From Pilot Validation to Commercial Rollout
The Series A2 proceeds will fund Immaterial’s pilot demonstrations in Europe and the U.S., following what the company describes as a “successful pilot project” already completed in Europe. Each pilot aims to validate performance metrics such as adsorption capacity, regeneration energy requirements, and mechanical stability—benchmarks that determine whether MOF systems can compete with established sorbents like zeolites or amine-based materials.
The company is also commissioning a multi-tonne manufacturing facility in Cambridge, a move intended to bridge the gap between laboratory validation and early commercial deployment. If the facility operates as planned, it could position Immaterial as the only current global supplier of MOFs in industrial monolithic form.
Chief Scientific Officer and founder Professor David Fairen-Jimenez, whose research at the University of Cambridge laid the groundwork for Immaterial’s technology, emphasized the transition from academia to market: “It’s a special moment to see these materials evolve from pure academic concepts to industrially viable products that tackle climate change.”
Immaterial’s success will depend not only on the scalability of its material synthesis but also on proving long-term stability and regeneration efficiency in operational environments.
