Large investments into Slovak green companies
In Slovakia, more and more companies have been emerging that are leading the country towards more sustainable solutions. Two of them recently received significant funding.
Greenway celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, being an independent leader in e-mobility. The mission of this company hasn’t changed this whole time – they want to eliminate the use of fossil fuels via the development of e-mobility. In 2015 they launched their first charging station and in 2016 they launched the commercial service and backend software. The company is bringing innovations into the industry trying to provide locally generated renewable energy, with deploying fast charging stations coupled with stationary energy storage devices and deploying solar panels on the roof near a charging station at Dalitrans, near Trencin, Slovakia. Now they are a full-service e-mobility company that offers a complete range of recharging services for EV drivers, services for location hosts, and solutions for complex business clients.
In February 2022 they received an investment of €85 million in immediate and future growth financing from international infrastructure funds Helios Energy Investments and Generation Capital. This investment was joined by existing shareholders janom a.s. and Neulogy Ventures. It is the largest known investment, and first by an international infrastructure fund, into electric vehicle (EV) charging in Central and Eastern Europe. The capital will be used to deploy more chargers, expand the network and strengthen the technical and IT competencies of the company to further enhance user experience. This investment reflects the growth of the EV market, when in 2021 one fifth of all new car sales in Europe were electric (around 2 million vehicles).
GA Drilling was established in 2008, with its headquarters in Bratislava, Slovakia. They developed PLASMABIT technology that is based on utilising high-energy electrical plasma, instead of mechanical drilling, to carry out a range of drilling and milling activities in the oil and gas sector. It also has the potential for further reaching applications in geothermal energy, where it aims to be able to drill deeper and more cost effectively than current drilling methods, making many more geothermal sources more economically viable for development. The team of 120+ professionals has successfully accomplished the first ever plasma milling underwater and the first ever plasma milling in a High Pressure/High Temperature environment. This technology can provide access and make geothermal energy more economical globally in more than 70% of the most populated earth’s areas.
GA Drilling received significant funding in 2019 from Lead Ventures. They signed a EUR 4.2 million funding agreement with Lead Ventures and a service agreement with MOL Group. Lead Ventures, a Budapest based venture capital firm invested funds provided by MOL Group, and Hungarian Eximbank. This deal gave GA Drilling access to onshore production wells to test its disruptive PLASMABIT plug & abandonment technology in real field conditions.
This year was another important year for further development of the company as there was an integration of the PLASMABIT technology with Nabors’ industry-leading drilling operations. Nabors Industries added to its clean energy portfolio with a USD $8 million investment in GA Drilling, which expands Nabors’ commitment to deep-drilling technologies. The cooperation between these two companies creates a way to accelerate commercialization in the field and eliminate traditional economic barriers of ultra-deep projects to expand global access to geothermal energy. GA Drilling recently concluded the pre-series investment round, which this deal complements. The total value of these new investments exceeds USD $20 million.