Eden raises USD 12 million in seed funding to advance reservoir stimulation tech

Eden co-founders Ammar Alali and Paris Smalls (source: Eden)

Eden, a startup developing permeability enhancement technology, has announced that it has closed an oversubscribed $12M seed funding round. The company has raised $21.3M to date, including $9.2M in non-dilutive grants.

Eden will use the seed funds to scale its Electrical Reservoir Stimulation (“ERS”) technology deployment across geothermal, geologic hydrogen, geologic carbon storage, and sustainable mining applications. TechEnergy Ventures and Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE: HP) led the round, with participation from Grantham Foundation for the Protection of The Environment, Anglo American, Good Growth Capital, Mass Ventures, and Portfolia Green & Sustainability Fund.

Eden had previously secured funding from the  U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) and a small business innovation research grant from the National Science Foundation. In 2019, the startup ran a crowdfunding campaign to help its efforts.

The seed funding announced today will help Eden accelerate and scale its ERS technology deployment across a wide range of geologies. After successfully validating its technology through a recent pilot test in Oman, the company is gearing up for additional pilots. In addition to field-validating the technology, these pilot projects will enhance Eden’s ability to increase
permeability across different geologies for a variety of use cases.

Reservoir stimulation has been identified as a key technology innovation area to facilitate the energy transition. The U.S. DOE recently highlighted the need for new and innovative reservoir stimulation techniques to unlock GWe of renewable power potential by reducing the cost of next-generation geothermal systems by up to 90%.

Similarly, these reservoir stimulation techniques can be utilized to unlock the potential of geologic hydrogen. Some researchers estimate that geologic hydrogen could reach production costs lower than $1 per kilogram, the DOE’s target for 2030. The potential for Eden’s technology also expands into geologic carbon storage and low-impact mining applications, where operators are looking at new ways to manage subsurface permeability to maximize CO 2 injectivity and create new
fractures to accelerate the recovery of critical minerals from deep ore bodies or through in-situ mining.

About the ERS technology

Eden’s patented ERS technology enables operators to maximize the value of geologic assets. By using high-voltage electricity and advanced reservoir monitoring techniques, Eden increases rock permeability while controlling the direction of the generated fracture network, targeting specific subsurface areas more precisely. This allows for a step change improvement in reservoir productivity and, as a result, the economic viability of energy transition initiatives that lever geological reservoirs. ERS is an evolution from traditional hydraulic-fracturing methods, which are water-intensive and create uncontrollable fractures, or “short-circuits,” that can hinder fluid flow and obstruct re-stimulation, functionally ending a reservoir’s economic viability.

Additional benefits of ERS include a substantial reduction in the number of trucks necessary for fluid and proppant transportation, emissions from wastewater treatment, pumping horsepower requirements, and seismic events. The result is a reduction in CO2 emissions, water consumption, and associated environmental hazards compared to traditional hydraulic- fracturing operations.

“At Eden, we create underground lightning strikes to vaporize rocks and enhance permeability in geologic reservoirs,” said Paris Smalls, CEO of Eden. “This is coupled with advanced 3D reservoir modeling, geophysical reservoir monitoring, and proprietary injection and production strategies to maximize the stimulated geologic reservoir volume, increasing the economic value of these resources.”

“Eden’s technology will become a critical enabler to many energy transition initiatives that require the controlled enhancement of subsurface permeability to more rapidly become economically viable and accelerate their deployment,” said Alejandro Solé, Chief Investment Officer at TechEnergy Ventures. “The Eden team has the technology, the expertise, and the commitment to scale this technology across geologies. We’re excited to support Paris and his team in this next phase of technology development.”

“Eden is building technology in pursuit of a more efficient and renewable energy future,” said Chris Miller, Director of Helmerich & Payne’ Corporate Ventures. “Our collective energy needs are growing right alongside the need to minimize environmental impact. Eden’s technology has the potential to deliver right at this sweet spot, to increase yields while helping us move towards a more sustainable future.”

Source: Email correspondence