Why We’re Doubling Down on Ardent
At Pangaea Ventures, our commitment to solving the planet’s toughest challenges means seeking out hard tech pioneers who don’t just promise change, they deliver it. That’s why we’re proud to announce our follow-on investment in Ardent’s Series B, which we are co-leading alongside Xplore Ventures, and with participation from Syensqo Ventures and Chevron Technology Ventures. This is the next chapter in a journey that began for us in 2023, when we led Ardent’s Series A and first backed a team whose vision for industrial transformation is now being realized at commercial scale.
Here’s why we’re excited to double down with Ardent:
Massive Opportunity
Modern industry’s hunger for lighter, more efficient processes has never been more urgent. It improves not only profitability, but resource allocation and climate challenges facing global supply chains. Nowhere is this more evident than in the production and separation of high-value chemicals like olefins, which are foundational to plastics, fuels, and broader materials markets. Conventional processes, such as cryogenic distillation, are staggeringly energy intensive, responsible for a material share of total industrial emissions and costs.
Within this challenge lies enormous market opportunity. Global demand for olefin production, specifically efficient ethylene and propylene separation, continues to climb, while producers are under consistent pressure to reduce costs, meet increasingly stringent regulations, decarbonize and capture value from process streams.. The drive for climate-smart chemical manufacturing is reshaping customer priorities and creating powerful tailwinds for robust alternatives.
Tackling Industrial Separation’s Toughest Challenges
Ardent’s answer is the Optiperm™ platform: an advanced, modular membrane system bringing previously unachievable performance to the toughest industrial chemical separations. In partnership with Braskem, the largest polyolefins producer in the Americas, Ardent recently achieved commercial implementation of Optiperm™, marking a pivotal moment for the future of olefin-paraffin separation. After 10,000+ hours of field testing and validation, Optiperm™ now enables efficient, bolt-on recovery of valuable olefins from purge gases, without requiring costly splitter upgrades or shutting down existing facilities.
This is more than incremental progress: it unlocks real, near-term value for global-scale partners, slashing energy use and enabling cost savings, while dramatically lowering the carbon footprint of core chemical processes. The same platform underpins meaningful advances for other verticals too, enabling practical, cost-effective carbon capture for data centers, pulp and paper, waste-to-energy,and petrochemical industries.
A Platform for Impact Across Verticals
Ardent’s exceptional membrane chemistry is built to solve what others can’t. Having delivered demonstration and commercial-scale projects with multinational partners like Chevron and Braskem, their team has proven that a practical, electrified, and easily integrated solution can transform how entire industries approach inefficiency, byproduct recovery, and environmental stewardship.
Whether it’s facilitating low-cost point-source carbon capture, or enabling new routes to circular chemical flows, the breadth and versatility of the Optiperm™ platform position Ardent for leadership in the transition to cleaner, lower-impact chemicals and fuels.
Why We’re Doubling Down
Breakthrough Hard Tech: Ardent’s patented membranes, deployable and proven in real chemical operations, have moved from bold promise to reliable tool, fundamentally changing what’s possible for modern process industries.
Scaling at the Right Moment: As market and policy dynamics converge on urgent efficiency, recovery, and decarbonization needs, the commercial rollout with Braskem and other majors puts Optiperm™ on the main stage.
Actionable Versatility: The value Ardent creates isn’t theoretical, it’s measurable in megawatts saved, emissions avoided, and new streams of commercial product enabled across multiple sectors.
Trusted Collaboration: Our partnership, beginning at Series A in 2023 and deepened through years of open dialogue, joint problem-solving, and board-level candor, embodies the trust, flexibility, and strategic perspective we strive to provide every portfolio company. While we could point to any number of milestones, it’s been most rewarding to watch Ardent’s leadership bring together global partners, technical talent, and customer champions to deliver impact beyond projections.
What’s Next for Ardent
The journey is far from over. With real-world deployments scaling and a committed, visionary team at the helm, Ardent stands poised to redefine the future of industrial separations, and, in doing so, accelerate decarbonization across chemicals, energy, and broader heavy industry. At Pangaea, we’re excited to double down on a partner whose technology, values, and rigor set the bar for what hard tech innovation can achieve.