OXFORD, United Kingdom and SAN FRANCISCO, May 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amphiform, a deep tech company building a new generation of nano-catalyst energy materials, has closed a $5.5M pre-seed round led by General Catalyst, co-led by Main Object and with Embassy Ventures, K5/Tokyo Black, Thomas Wolf, Charlie Songhurst and other angel investors participating.

Today's fuel cells are heavy and underpowered. The chemistry that generates electricity happens only at a thin interface where catalyst, fuel, electrons and protons meet. Most of the "deep" expensive catalyst is never used.

Amphiform is building a new kind of matter: hybrid materials, assembled atomic layer by atomic layer, that turn the whole volume into active surface designed to be as lightweight and powerful as physics allows.

The result is fuel cells targeting 30x higher power density - an order of magnitude beyond current Li-ion batteries - and 85% cheaper. By precisely tuning the spacing between the atomic layers, this approach unlocks the use of liquid fuels like methanol and ethanol - both of which can be produced cleanly, from biomass or captured CO2.

"Energy is the bottleneck on every other ambition humanity ...