Rivan
UK startup building Europe's largest synthetic natural gas plant; raised £25m for 15MW Wiltshire facility.
Last refreshed: 22 April 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Can synthetic natural gas decarbonise UK heavy industry faster than electrification?
Timeline for Rivan
Raised £25m for Europe's largest SNG plant in Wiltshire
UK Startups and Innovation: Rivan raises £25m for Europe's biggest SNG plant- What is synthetic natural gas and how is it made?
- Synthetic natural gas (SNG) is pipeline-compatible methane produced by combining renewable hydrogen (from electrolysis) with CO₂ captured from biogenic or industrial sources. The resulting gas is chemically identical to fossil natural gas.
- What is Rivan's Project Steadfast?
- Project Steadfast is a 15MW synthetic natural gas plant being built in Wiltshire, funded by Rivan's £25m April 2026 raise. It will be Europe's largest SNG facility and the first to inject SNG into the UK gas grid.Source: Lowdown
- Who invested in Rivan's £25m round?
- IQ Capital led the round, with Plural co-investing and angels Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First), Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face), and Markus Villig (Bolt) participating. Total raised is now $46m.Source: Lowdown
- Why does the UK need synthetic natural gas for net zero?
- The UK gas grid carries roughly a third of total national energy. Decarbonising it via electrification is expensive and technically impractical for many industrial uses. SNG uses existing pipelines without modification, making it a potential lower-disruption pathway for sectors like steel, cement, and heating.
- Is synthetic natural gas better than hydrogen for the gas grid?
- SNG is chemically identical to fossil methane and fully compatible with existing pipelines and appliances, unlike pure hydrogen which requires significant infrastructure modifications. However, SNG's climate benefit depends on sourcing genuinely low-carbon CO₂ feedstocks.
Background
Rivan raised £25m on 20 April 2026 for Project Steadfast, a 15MW synthetic natural gas (SNG) plant in Wiltshire. The round was led by IQ Capital and co-invested by Plural, with angel participation from Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First), Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face), and Markus Villig (Bolt). Total capital raised now stands at $46m. Project Steadfast will be Europe's largest SNG facility and the first to inject SNG into the UK gas grid, making it a production-scale proof of concept for the technology.
Rivan develops synthetic natural gas production technology that converts renewable electricity and biogenic or captured CO₂ into pipeline-compatible methane. The resulting gas is chemically identical to fossil natural gas and can flow through existing grid infrastructure without modification. SNG's primary use cases are hard-to-decarbonise industrial heat (steel, cement, chemicals), seasonal grid balancing, and the progressive decarbonisation of the gas distribution network itself. Because SNG uses existing pipelines and appliances, it offers an alternative to the full electrification pathway for sectors and buildings where electrification is technically or economically impractical.
Project Steadfast's significance extends beyond the company. The UK gas grid currently carries about a third of the country's total energy; decarbonising it without stranding trillions of pounds of existing infrastructure is one of the harder unsolved problems in UK net-zero policy. A working 15MW facility in Wiltshire, injecting SNG at grid pressure, would validate the full production chain at commercial scale and create the regulatory and commercial template for subsequent projects.