Colorado School of Mines geothermal energy startup GTO Technologies announced today it has successfully closed the final $2.7 million of its $5 million seed funding round. To complete the transaction GTO worked with Mines’ Office of Research and Technology Transfer and Global Energy Future Initiative.
Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment was the lead investor during this funding round. Grantham was established in 1997 by Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham.
“The venture capital industry can be reluctant to invest in risky technologies with externalized benefits, or in speculative business models which still require climate policy to mature,” the foundation explains on its website. “This leads to a gap in the market into which many ideas with enormous climate potential currently fall. We invest in this gap.”
GTO Technologies, holder of exclusive license rights to multiple patents, is developing a low-cost and rapid multistage fracture stimulation technology with cemented casing frac sleeves for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). The system controls flow through each sleeve by utilizing GTO Technologies’ wellbore tractor that detects and controls the flow of wellbore fluid.
GTO Technologies says the tools it has under development provide a 50 percent uplift in power generation over the 30-year life of the EGS wells as compared to wells without conformance control, for similar costs.
“What differentiates GTO Technologies from other systems on the market is our patented processes and technology to overcome the natural tendency for short circuiting, and to control the conformance from the injectors into the producers, improving EGS power generation, with rigorous component testing at geothermal temperatures and pressures,” said Will Fleckenstein, a founder of GTO Technologies and Mines’ Director of Strategic Business Development, Office of Global Initiatives and Business Development.
About Mines
Colorado School of Mines is a public R1 research university focused on applied science and engineering, producing the talent, knowledge and innovations to serve industry and benefit society – all to create a more prosperous future.
