FluoRok, an Oxford University spinout that makes fluorochemicals without using hydrogen fluoride, raised $30m (£22.8m) in a Series A round announced on 5 November 2026. The company said the round was oversubscribed and finished above its original target.
The round was led by Orano Venture Fund, the venture arm of French nuclear fuel group Orano, and its manager Supernova Invest. Bidra Innovation Ventures joined as a new investor, as did EverQuest Capital Partners, CPI Enterprises, WS Investment and a group of angel investors. Existing backers Oxford Science Enterprises, BGF, Green Generation Fund, Volta Energy Technologies and the University of Oxford also invested.
The $30m is not all equity. It includes about £1m (about $1.3m) of grant funding from Innovate UK through its Investor Partnerships programme. No valuation was disclosed.
“We are thrilled to welcome new investors on our journey to fundamentally change how the world makes fluorochemicals”Dr Gabriele Pupo, CEO and Founder, FluoRok
What FluoRok makes
Fluorochemicals are used in medicines, crop protection products and lithium-ion batteries, and their production usually involves hydrogen fluoride, a hazardous acid. FluoRok's process avoids it. It relies on mechanical activation and can start from lower-grade or recycled fluoride.
Its first products are reagents and lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6), the salt used in most lithium-ion battery electrolytes, along with inorganic fluorides for drug and agrochemical makers. Tech Funding News reported that the company has made battery electrolytes at more than 99.99% purity and wants to become the first producer of LiPF6 based in the EU.
Oxford chemistry professor Véronique Gouverneur and Gabriele Pupo, now chief executive, founded the company in 2022, according to Tech Funding News.
What the money is for
FluoRok will use the funding to build demonstrator facilities for its reagents and electrolyte salts, hire for the scale-up, test its products with customers at larger volumes and add commercial partners. CPI Enterprises, one of the new investors, is also working with the company as a scale-up partner. FluoRok said it already has pilot qualifications and commercial traction with key customers but did not name them.
"We are thrilled to welcome new investors on our journey to fundamentally change how the world makes fluorochemicals, with safer chemistry and better economics," Pupo said. He said the funding would help the company move from start-up to scale-up and towards large-scale industrial manufacturing.
"We back companies whose technologies support a sovereign, sustainable industrial transition," said Florian de Beauchaine, investment manager at Orano Venture Fund and Supernova Invest. He said FluoRok had already shown its process works at pilot scale, and that removing hydrogen fluoride from production deals with a safety and supply problem shared across the industry. Abhiram Kannan of Bidra Innovation Ventures said the attraction was that the chemistry is a platform that could be applied across drug building blocks, battery materials and inorganic fluorides, rather than a single product.
The funding so far
Before this round FluoRok had raised $14m (£11m) in equity, plus more than $13m (£10m) in public funding from UK and European programmes, the company said. Tech Funding News reported that Oxford Science Enterprises put in an initial £3m, announced in July 2023, and that BGF and Green Generation Fund led a £7.7m round in September 2024. It put the company's total equity raising at about $44m including the new round.
The company did not disclose its headcount.
Company website: fluorok.com