CullBeck has $1 billion in customer orders before its first module ships

A record raise for a reason

CullBeck, a deep-tech company spun out of Victoria University’s Robinson Research Institute in September 2025, has pulled off something rare for a New Zealand hardware startup. It has raised $20 million in total capital, including a $15 million first outside round at a $60 million valuation that NBR reckons is the largest recorded first raise for a New Zealand deep tech company.

The round was led by Punakaiki Fund and its manager 2040 Ventures, with backing from Outset Ventures (whose investment committee includes Sir Peter Beck), Motion Capital and Icehouse Ventures. Another $5 million came from an unnamed Australian customer that has taken an equity stake as a foundation investor. That is private capital chasing a hardware bet, not government grant money propping up a proof of concept, and that distinction matters.

The technology is genuinely world-first

CullBeck uses hydrogen as the chemical reductant in ironmaking, replacing the coking coal burnt in a conventional blast furnace. The headline number is speed. The company says it has cut ironmaking time from 12 to 14 hours down to 2.5 minutes, and now produces around 10kg of steel per hour in the lab.

The capital will fund a demonstrator module next to NZ Steel’s Glenbrook plant, targeting 2.5 tonnes per hour, with installation from early 2027 and operation by 2028. The clever part is the format. The modules are small enough to sit on the back of a truck, which is a very different proposition from replacing a billion-dollar blast furnace. The process is also built around titanomagnetite, New Zealand’s black ironsand deposits. “One of the key elements of our tech is its base,” says CullBeck CEO and co-founder Martin Hacon. “It was founded using titanomagnetite, that’s the black sand deposits we’ve got in New Zealand. So we’re focusing on Ring of Fire countries” – Indonesia, the Philippines and others with similar geology. The process also spins out critical minerals as a byproduct, which is not nothing when global supply chains for those are a geopolitical flashpoint.

The $1 billion is a plan, not a signed cheque

That Australian foundation customer has committed $5 million in equity and outlined plans to buy 18 modules if the Glenbrook demonstrator performs as expected. Hacon says that “will bring in well over a billion dollars of revenue.”

Worth being precise here. This is a conditional pipeline, not a signed $1 billion contract. But a customer that has already put real equity on the table and named a module count is a categorically stronger signal than a polite letter of intent. There is also stated interest from Indonesia and the Philippines. Treat the number as projected revenue from a committed anchor customer’s plans, subject to the demonstrator delivering.

The grey hydrogen catch

Here is the bit most coverage glosses over. CullBeck is described as zero-emission, but the hydrogen source decides whether that is true. Green hydrogen, made by electrolysing water with renewable power, has been running at more than $12 per kilogram against a heavy-industry viability threshold nearer $4 to $5. Grey hydrogen, reformed from natural gas, is far cheaper and available now, but it carries its own carbon emissions.

CullBeck’s early commercial modules lean on grey hydrogen. So the first units eliminate the coal combustion in the furnace but not the upstream emissions from making the hydrogen. That is partial decarbonisation, and it should be said plainly. It is also exactly how industrial decarbonisation actually works. Build the hardware that runs on the cheap feedstock available today, and let it switch to clean hydrogen as costs fall or as natural hydrogen deposits prove viable.

University of Auckland modelling has found green hydrogen is unlikely to supply more than 12% of industrial process heat by 2050, and that direct electrification is usually more efficient for heat. But CullBeck is not competing with electrification. It uses hydrogen as a chemical reductant, a job electricity cannot do directly, which puts it high on the ladder of genuinely useful hydrogen applications.

Why the prize is worth chasing

Steel is one of the hardest sectors to clean up. The world makes around 2 billion tonnes a year, generating 7 to 8% of global carbon emissions. Even a sliver of that market dwarfs a $60 million valuation. MBIE’s December 2023 modelling projected New Zealand hydrogen demand of 212,400 tonnes by 2035 and 642,300 tonnes by 2050, with industrial feedstock a key driver.

CullBeck’s commercial case, though, runs offshore through Australia and the Ring of Fire, not through domestic policy. That is the healthy version of this story. A New Zealand institute built world-first IP, private investors backed it at record scale, and a serious industrial buyer has committed capital. The zero-emission promise is a 2028-and-beyond project, and the road there runs through grey hydrogen. That is a compromise, not a con. The real test arrives at Glenbrook in 2028, when the demonstrator either turns that billion-dollar plan into orders or does not.

Sources

• Hydrogen-powered steelmaking start-up CullBeck raises funds at $60m valuation, signs ‘$1b’ anchor customer (2026-07-24)
• Natural hydrogen can make decarbonising industry cheaper – NZ’s turbulent geology could give it an edge
• Green hydrogen unlikely to drive major emissions cuts before 2050, modelling finds