ZERO INDUSTRIAL ANNOUNCES $10 MILLION SERIES A INVESTMENT TO ACCELERATE DEVELOPMENT OF THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE IN NORTH AMERICA

CHARLESTON, S.C., April 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Zero Industrial, Inc. ("Zero Industrial"), a leading development company decarbonizing industrial heat by utilizing thermal energy storage ("TES") systems, announced today that it successfully closed $10 million in funding led by Evok Innovations ("Evok") with participation from Rusheen Capital Management ("Rusheen").

"We are excited to partner with Evok and Rusheen to help us accelerate the deployment of thermal energy storage projects in North America," said Ted Kniesche, founder and CEO. "We are rapidly originating project opportunities with industrial customers who want to reduce their energy costs and lower their carbon footprint by using stored electricity as thermal energy, instead of burning gas, fuel oil or coal."

Zero Industrial was founded in 2024 by Ted Kniesche and Jim McDermott to decarbonize industrial heat using commercially-available TES systems at industrial facilities. The company provides full project development services to its customers, including technology selection, project design and engineering of each TES system. Importantly, Zero Industrial will fully finance each project and sell clean heat or steam to its customers under a long-term Heat-as-a-Service contract without any upfront capital outlay required by the industrial facility. 

"We are excited to partner with Ted and his team at Zero Industrial to build a market leading development business that will accelerate the decarbonization of industry – one of the hardest to abate sectors of our economy," said Naynika Chaubey, Partner at Evok Innovations. "We continue to see massive growth from cheap, intermittent renewable generation, coupled with increasingly impacted electrical grids. Zero Industrial capitalizes on these market challenges by deploying thermal storage projects that will shift curtailed or off-peak clean electricity to baseload heat and steam used by industries globally."

Zero Industrial is actively originating and developing projects in the United States and Canada and seeking industrial customers looking to decarbonize their industrial heat, eliminate criteria pollutants and reduce energy costs and volatility.

About Zero Industrial, Inc.

Zero Industrial is a leading developer of industrial decarbonization projects, utilizing thermal energy storage technologies to eliminate the combustion of fossil fuels for heat and steam production at industrial facilities. Zero Industrial offers its customers a full end-to-end development solution from design and engineering to project execution and delivery. Heat generated from its projects will be sold under a Heat-as-a-Service agreement without requiring any capital investment from its customers. Zero Industrial is actively originating and developing projects in the United States and Canada and exploring additional international markets. For more information, please visit www.zeroindustrial.energy

About Evok Innovations

Evok is a clean tech venture capital fund focused on supporting exceptional entrepreneurs with bold visions for scaling novel technologies within heavy industry. At Evok, we provide value beyond capital by leveraging our team of technologists and company builders, along with our limited partner group—which includes major financial institutions and industrial leaders—to help accelerate the success of our companies.

In 2016, Evok was founded with the thesis of collaborating with industrial partners to invest in and scale novel technologies in the energy sector. With the launch of Evok Fund II in 2022, we expanded this mandate, bringing in strategic partners across new industrial verticals, including critical minerals. Evok is actively investing out of Fund II, a $284M USD fund focused on supporting Series A+ companies in North America that are taking novel approaches to supporting the energy transition across a wide array of sectors and industries. For more information, please visit: www.evokinnovations.com

About Rusheen Capital Management

Rusheen Capital Management ("RCM") is a Santa Monica-based private equity firm specializing in investments that promote sustainability and resource efficiency across the energy transition landscape. Founded in 2015, RCM focuses on growth-stage companies in sectors such as carbon capture and utilization, energy transition, low-carbon energy, and water sustainability. Since 2003, RCM's principals founded, ran, and invested in over 40 energy transition companies across the entire industrial economy. For more information, please visit www.rusheen.com.

For more information, contact Sara Holba at [email protected]

SOURCE Zero Industrial, Inc.