Optimus Technologies, a technology company that decarbonizes the largest and most challenging sectors of the transportation industry, has secured a $17.8 million Series A funding round led by Mitsui & Co. out of Tokyo, Japan. The round included participation from one of North America’s largest commercial fleets, Chevron Renewable Energy Group, and Pittsburgh regional investors including: Idea Foundry, Inc., Innovation Works, Richard King Mellon Foundation, and Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh.
The capital raise will fund the further development and deployment of Optimus’ Vector System, an advanced fuel system technology which enables heavy-duty diesel engines to operate on 100% biodiesel, a biogenic near-zero carbon fuel. Heavy-duty transportation sectors are extremely challenging and costly to deploy electric or hydrogen solutions which require total replacement of existing assets, buildout of completely new infrastructure and a fundamental shift in global energy production to renewables. Conversely, Optimus Technologies’ Vector System seamlessly integrates into existing engines currently in operation or can be built into new engines as they are manufactured, leveraging the foundational diesel engine for the transition to a low-carbon future.
Mitsui and Chevron Renewable Energy Group were joined by other strategic investors in the Series A funding round for Optimus Technologies. Optimus was founded in 2010 with the mission of combating global climate change by deploying solutions to decarbonize the largest and most challenging transportation and industrial sectors, and it released the Vector System commercially in 2018. Since then, Optimus has deployed the technology with leading commercial fleets including ADM, and public fleets including Washington DC, and the City of Madison Wisconsin, among numerous others, accumulating millions of miles of successful operation.
