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EverQuest and CPI back University of Oxford spin-out FluoRok in an oversubscribed $30 million (£22.8 million) Series A to scale a safer, lower-hazard way to make the fluorochemicals behind medicines, crops and batteries.
Almost every medicine, crop-protection product and lithium-ion battery depends on fluorochemicals - yet the way they are made has barely changed in 250 years, and still relies on hydrogen fluoride (HF), one of the most hazardous chemicals in industrial use. FluoRok, a University of Oxford spin-out, has developed a safer way to make these essential chemicals in standard chemical facilities, without the dedicated HF infrastructure the conventional process demands. EverQuest and CPI have backed the company in an oversubscribed $30 million (£22.8 million) Series A to take that breakthrough to industrial scale.
The round was led by Orano Venture Fund / Supernova Invest and joined by Bidra Innovation Ventures, with continued backing from existing investors including Oxford Science Enterprises, BGF, GGF, Volta Energy Technologies and the University of Oxford. It exceeded its original target, building on £11 million raised in previous rounds and more than £10 million in UK and European public funding secured to date.
A safer way to make critical chemicals
Conventional fluorochemical production depends on HF and on high-purity mined fluorspar, a critical raw material sourced from a handful of countries, predominantly China. HF is highly toxic and difficult to handle, so plants require specialised infrastructure, heavy capital investment and complex permitting - which limits where new capacity can be built.
FluoRok's patented process removes the need for dedicated HF infrastructure, using mechanical activation rather than conventional acid chemistry and high temperatures. It runs on off-the-shelf industrial equipment, can use lower-grade mined fluoride or fluoride recovered from industrial waste streams, and so cuts capital and operating costs while allowing production to be sited closer to end markets. Its initial products are inorganic fluorides for pharmaceutical and agrochemical applications, and lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF₆), the key electrolyte salt in lithium-ion batteries, with further fluorochemicals to follow.
Critical materials at the right moment
The timing is strategic. Europe is almost entirely dependent on China for LiPF₆, and policy on both sides of the Atlantic is shifting to reshore battery-materials supply. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act classes fluorspar as a critical raw material and battery-grade lithium as strategic; the US Inflation Reduction Act excludes EV batteries whose components or critical minerals are sourced from China and other “foreign entities of concern”; and the UK is funding domestic battery-supply capability through the Advanced Propulsion Centre's DRIVE35 programme. European production of the kind FluoRok enables is exactly what these measures are designed to encourage.
FluoRok is also a platform rather than a single product. The same chemistry spans battery materials, agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, giving the company several independent routes to commercial scale from one underlying technology.
From pilot to industrial scale
FluoRok has completed pilot qualifications and built strong commercial traction with key customers. The Series A will fund its transition from start-up to scale-up and will support the company to:
Prove repeatable manufacturing of its reagents and battery electrolyte salts at demonstrator scale
Expand the team to support scale-up
Validate its products with customers at scale
Broaden commercial partnerships to accelerate global deployment
Backed by technical expertise as well as capital
The investment builds on an established relationship between CPI and FluoRok. In 2025, CPI joined a FluoRok-led consortium, alongside Coventry University, to deliver a first-of-a-kind UK demonstrator plant for LiPF₆ production, supported through the Department for Business and Trade's DRIVE35 programme delivered by the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC).
Why we invested
For EverQuest, FluoRok is a conviction investment in a potential category leader. Three things set it apart. First, a genuinely differentiated process that removes the need for dedicated HF infrastructure rather than merely improving on the conventional route, changing the safety, cost and geographic calculus of fluorochemical production. Second, a founding team drawn from one of the world's leading fluorine-chemistry groups, with the depth to execute an industrial scale-up. Third, platform optionality: the same technology can address several large markets at once, from battery materials to pharmaceuticals. Combined with CPI's scale-up infrastructure, that gives FluoRok a credible path from Oxford science to a new manufacturing standard.
Hannah Wade, said: “FluoRok is tackling an important challenge in fluorochemical manufacturing with a technology that has the potential to strengthen supply chains across batteries, pharmaceuticals and other critical industries. By combining investment with CPI's technical expertise and scale-up capabilities, we're helping accelerate the commercialisation of innovations that can deliver long-term economic and industrial impact, while supporting the growth of new manufacturing capability and economic value.”
Peter Smith, said: “FluoRok is exactly the kind of company we built EverQuest to back - world-class science with the potential to reset how an entire industry makes a critical material. Reducing the industry's reliance on hazardous hydrogen fluoride is a genuine step change, not an incremental one, and the platform gives FluoRok several routes to scale. Alongside CPI, we are excited to help the team turn that breakthrough into a new manufacturing capability built in the UK.”
What comes next
The next phase is about proof at scale. FluoRok must now show that its demonstrator plants can produce reagents and LiPF₆ to specification - consistently and economically - and convert early commercial traction into committed demand. If FluoRok succeeds, the prize is substantial: a safer, lower-carbon and sovereign route to the chemicals that modern medicine, agriculture and electrification all depend on, and the foundation of a new fluorochemical manufacturing platform built in the UK.
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FluoRok is part of a growing portfolio of businesses developing the technologies transforming how products get made.