Monolith Announces Additional Funding from Investor Consortium

Latest round of financing will support Monolith's commercial growth, as it continues to advance toward expanding operations

LINCOLN, Neb., Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Monolith Materials, Inc. (Monolith), a global leader in clean hydrogen and carbon black, today announced a closed funding round from existing investors, including Azimuth V Energy Evolution Fund and Azimuth Capital Management's Development Company Platform, Cornell Capital, Decarbonization Partners, TPG Rise Climate, and Warburg Pincus. This is the latest round following Monolith's capital raise in July 2022 and conditional approval for a loan from the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office to expand its production facilities in Nebraska.

"It is an exciting time for Monolith, and we are incredibly proud of the work we are doing to scale the business supported by world-class investors," said Rob Hanson, co-founder and CEO of Monolith.  

Monolith uses clean energy to power a commercial-scale proprietary plasma pyrolysis process that electrifies carbon black and hydrogen production. The carbon black produced from Monolith's low-emission process is an essential input for tires, plastics, inks, paints and other uses. Today, the carbon black that Monolith produces at its existing facility (OC1) goes into tires across North America. The clean hydrogen to be produced at Monolith's expansion facility (OC2) will be converted to ammonia and is expected to be supplied as fertilizer to farmers in America's Corn Belt to help feed and fuel the world.

"This funding continues our decade-long partnership with Monolith as the company builds a high energy, low emissions future," said Roy Ben-Dor, Managing Director and Head of Energy Transition & Sustainability, Warburg Pincus. "The company's proprietary approach to producing sustainable hydrogen, carbon black, and ammonia is critical to decarbonizing the energy and materials sectors."

"The Monolith team continues to move at pace in tackling emissions from some of the most widely used, yet most difficult to decarbonize materials. Since our initial investment in 2022, we've seen strong demand from top brands in Monolith's end markets and we look forward to continuing that momentum with our latest investment," said Jonathan Garfinkel, a Managing Partner of TPG Rise Climate.

"Rob and the team at Monolith continue to successfully navigate the road toward launching their expansion, which will significantly scale their operations and put more clean tires on the road," said Dr. Meghan Sharp, Global Head of Decarbonization Partners. "We look forward to continuing to support the company."

About Monolith
Monolith is a next-generation cleantech company that uses clean energy to power a commercial-scale proprietary plasma pyrolysis process that electrifies the production of carbon black and hydrogen, which provides environmental advantages over conventional production processes. Monolith is backed by Azimuth Capital Management, Cornell Capital, Decarbonization Partners, Elda River Capital Management, LLC, Imperative Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, Perry Creek Capital LP, SK Inc., TPG Rise Climate and Warburg Pincus. For more information on Monolith, visit www.monolith-corp.com.

About Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus LLC is a leading global growth investor. The firm has more than $83 billion in assets under management. The firm's active portfolio of more than 225 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector, and geography. Warburg Pincus is an experienced partner to management teams seeking to build durable companies with sustainable value. Since its founding in 1966, Warburg Pincus has invested more than $117 billion in over 1,000 companies globally across its private equity, real estate, and capital solutions strategies. The firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Amsterdam, Beijing, Berlin, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, Mauritius, San Francisco, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Singapore. For more information please visit www.warburgpincus.com.

About Azimuth Capital Management
Founded in 2000, Azimuth is an energy transition private equity manager focused on late stage growth equity and development opportunities in North America and Europe. Azimuth is an international leader in energy operating and project development experience, which enables differentiated results across five funds in addition to in-house development company origination. Azimuth V targets low carbon fuels, battery materials, and baseload clean power and storage with a focus on efficient carbon mitigation. For more information, please visit www.navigatingenergy.com.

About Cornell Capital
Cornell Capital is a U.S.-based private investment firm with ~$6 billion of AUM and offices in New York and Hong Kong. Leveraging decades of global investment experience, the firm takes a disciplined approach to investing across the consumer, financial services, and industrials/business services sectors, often in companies that can benefit from the firm's Asia presence and cross-border expertise. Founded in 2013 by Senior Partner Henry Cornell, the former Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs' Merchant Banking Division, the firm is led by a highly seasoned team with significant shared investment experience. For more information, visit www.cornellcapllc.com. 

About TPG Rise Climate
TPG Rise Climate is the dedicated climate investing strategy of TPG's $19 billion global impact investing platform. TPG Rise Climate pursues climate-related investments that benefit from the diverse skills of TPG's investing professionals, the strategic relationships developed across TPG's existing portfolio of climate-focused companies, and a global network of executives and advisors. The fund takes a broad-based sector approach to investment types, from growth equity to value-added infrastructure, and focuses on climate solutions in the following thematic areas: clean electrons, clean molecules and materials, and negative emissions. Jim Coulter, TPG Founding Partner and Executive Chairman, serves as a Managing Partner of TPG Rise Climate. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson serves as TPG Rise Climate's Executive Chairman. For more information, please visit www.therisefund.com/tpgriseclimate.

About Decarbonization Partners
Decarbonization Partners is a joint venture between Temasek and BlackRock focused on late-stage venture capital and early growth private equity investing in next-generation companies that provide solutions and technologies to help accelerate global efforts to achieve a net zero global economy by 2050. Decarbonization Partners combines Temasek and BlackRock's complementary platforms and expertise in sourcing and underwriting private investments, portfolio and risk management, and sustainable technology and analytics. Decarbonization Partners invests in a wide range of companies that have proven technology and need capital to scale. The partnership attracted $1.40bn in capital from a diverse set of over 30 institutional investors across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. 

SOURCE Monolith