Volta Greentech 2024 in Review
2024 has been a transformative year for Volta Greentech, filled with significant developments. In this letter, I would like to share a bit of what we have been up to during the year. Last month, our company turned six years old. For those who have been with us for a while, I think you’ll agree—2024 has been our most transformative year to date.
While we usually focus on step-by-step improvements, some call for bigger leaps—and this year was one of them. We saw several opportunities with the potential to impact our company and mission significantly, and we chose to take the leaps.
Building Volta Greentech into the company we envision will take a long time. Our work is technically difficult and we are part of leading the creation of an entirely new market from the ground up. What motivates many of us at Volta is the global importance of developing solutions to reduce agricultural emissions—and the meaningful progress we make year after year. We are reminded about the progress we are making when thinking about what feels obvious to us now but felt far less obvious years ago. We just have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future as nicely put by Steve Jobs on their journey with Apple:
“ You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
2024 has also been a year filled with news of successful startups struggling to the point of going bankrupt. There are many different ways to build a company and it’s quite difficult to know what’s right or wrong. Our approach to building our company, which we think is well suited for Volta Greentech, can be described by the musical term "Allegro non troppo"—Italian for "hurry, but not too fast." I know nothing about music, but I had an old sturdy sailboat that came with the name. The sailing was rather slow, but always steady towards the destination. At Volta we act in a hurry to build an impactful company, but we don’t want to hurry too fast. This will be key for us to build Volta Greentech to a great enduring company.
So, what transformative developments did we make in 2024? Three stand out:
Early this year, we shifted our full focus to Lome®, our next-generation product.
Using algae is now a closed chapter.We launched our service platform.
Voltas service platform enables the customer to accelerate sustainability with feed additives, earn trust, and leverage data for smart, profitable decisions. Our service platform guides the customer and helps track and manage the progress of using feed additives in the supply chain.We relocated our company to Gothenburg.
We are excited about having Gothenburg as our new long-term base where we now have the possibility to centralize our team and operations by bringing R&D, production and business development all under the same roof. Gothenburg is a great city with a lot of talented people and perfectly located for us.
Our mission at Volta Greentech remains the same - to battle global warming, using feed additives. We are confident in the potential of Lome and we believe feed additives will become an industry standard in agriculture, in a not too distant future. We have a lot of hard work ahead in 2025 and our focus is clear: finalize development of Lome to become the best product on the market, onboard new customers, and continue delivering excellent service while driving methane reductions with farmers. We are excited to establish Gothenburg as our new base and further develop our service platform to provide even greater value to our customers.
The product development of Lome®
In 2023, Volta Greentech’s co-founder Angelo Demeter and our Head of R&D Hanna Tydinger began an exciting parallel track of developing a second-generation product in the lab with breakthrough potential. The product was named Lome®. Inspired by the natural properties of algae, Lome is synthetically formulated and produced as a powdered additive. Just a few grams mixed into cow feed each day safely reduces methane in the gut, lowering emissions while supporting cow health. Lome is carefully designed to ensure safety for the cow, the farmer, the consumer, and the planet while being highly effective at reducing methane emissions.
For some time, we’ve known that transitioning from utilizing natural algae as a feed additive and instead going all in on Lome would unlock enormous potential in terms of performance and scalability. It would change the trajectory of our company, the value we can bring to our customers, and the way we work day to day. Early in 2024, we felt we had gathered enough research data and knowledge to take the leap to fully focus on Lome. Developing synthetic feed additives comes with its technical challenges. Still, we judge the impact potential of Lome to be much greater than natural algae as synthetic feed additives are easier to produce at scale at low cost and with consistent product quality. Now when 2024 comes to an end we have strong confidence in Lome and that we will be able to bring it to market in Europe hopefully as soon as in 2026.
In our new lab in Gothenburg, our R&D team has been working hard and efficiently on nailing down the product design and its final formulation. We have completed multiple successful on-farm trials with cows in Sweden and Finland to demonstrate the product's safety, ease of use and its performance in reducing methane emissions. In 2025, we will send in our application to the EU Commission for European market approval with a planned market launch in 2026. We will be able to share the product's ingredients and performance as we get closer to market launch.
Looking back, trying to connect the dots, algae has proven to be a very good proof-of-concept product for us that has been able to take us where we are today.
Initial promising results of launching our Service Platform
Initial ideas for the service platform have been part of the vision for a couple of years. What we decided to do in 2024, which now have proven to be quite transformative for our company, and our customers, is that we have entered a partnership with dsm-firmenich to be distribution partner of their methane-reducing feed additive Bovaer®, and use Bovaer to reduce emissions with our customers through our service platform. Working with our customers sitting at the drawing board planning is one thing, working with the service platform and Bovaer in practice being out on farms in real life is game-changing for the development.
With our service platform Volta Greentech can help enable food companies accelerate sustainability with feed additives, earn trust, and leverage climate data for smarter and more profitable decisions. With the service platform we can better guide the customer and help track and manage the progress of using feed additives in the customers supply chain. The data in the platform is backed up by our comprehensive work with measurements, reporting, and verification of emissions reduced with farmers using methane-reducing feed additives.
Our service platform supports the use of multiple feed additives. This means we will drive sales for products that compete with Lome while it allows us to accelerate market development and gain valuable hands-on experience. This approach enhances our service offering while deepening customer insights.
In 2024, we onboarded several customers on our service platform to reduce methane emissions on Swedish farms. Our customer Axfood, together with their dairy supplier Gäsene, got onboarded on our service platform in October and we are currently reducing approximately 3.2 tons of CO2-equivalents every day now on farms from 650 cows with additive Bovaer (press-release). In comparison, driving my old Saab 93 from Stockholm to Lysekil (6h) emitted around 100kg CO2. Meaning that we now in this one project are reducing the same amount of CO2e as 32 old cars driving Stockholm-Lysekil – every day.
Larger additional contracts are in place to onboard more customers in 2025, and interest continues to grow. Volta Greentech obviously has the ambition to develop the market leading feed additive to be used in combination with our platform, but we will keep using what’s currently best available on the market to push for emission reductions to happen. Bovaer is currently the only commercially scaled feed additive in Europe. Volta Greentech's service platform will be a key tool for us and our customers to use feed additives to reduce emissions while driving revenue successfully.
We have only gotten started. There’s a long way to go to reach full ambition, but we’ll get there. In 2025 we plan to onboard multiple large customers on our service platform and reduce methane emissions from thousands of cows.
Market Momentum: Methane-Reducing Feed Additives Taking Off
Today, there are 1.3 billion cows around the globe, providing food and livelihoods for billions of people. Together, these cows emit 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) annually as methane—a potent greenhouse gas produced by microorganisms in their gut.
While this represents approximately 5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions—double the emissions from the world’s airplanes—the good news is that a transformation is underway. A solution to this challenge exists, and momentum is building across the agriculture and food industries.
Reducing methane emissions from cows using innovative feed additives is not just a technical breakthrough—it requires a collective effort involving feed companies, farmers, dairy and beef producers, food retailers, consumers, and policymakers. And we’re inspired by the growing enthusiasm and commitment we see across the sector.
Over the past 20 years, only 2% of agricultural emissions have been reduced in Europe. Instead of getting discouraged by the lack of industry progress we find quite some motivation in the clear need of leadership from Volta Greentech to push for progress.
After years of what we think is too slow progress for the industry, we see how the tide is turning. Methane from cows accounts for half of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, but 2024 has been en eventful year. Leadership is emerging from every corner—governments and companies are stepping up like never before. Month by month, we see new initiatives, collaborations, and policy developments that push us closer to meaningful change.
At Volta Greentech, we are more motivated than ever. We are seeing firsthand how partnerships and dedicated work is driving impactful progress, and we’re proud to be part of driving this movement. Together with our partners, we’re confident that the reductions in methane emissions will scale dramatically in the coming years—making a tangible difference in the battle against global warming.
Here are some highlights from this year’s remarkable progress:
Protos and Volta Greentech Scaling Up Collaboration
The Swedish food company Protos, in partnership with Volta Greentech, is scaling up its work with methane-reducing feed additives. Together, we aim to make Smak av Gotland the most climate-friendly beef on Sweden’s retail market. Read more.
Cheese with Lower Climate Impact Set for Spring Launch in Sweden
A groundbreaking collaboration between Fröstorp farm, Gäsene dairy, Volta Greentech, and Axfood is creating a methane-reducing cheese—proof of how the entire food chain can align for sustainability. Read more.
Denmark Mandates Feed Additives from January 2025
Leading the way in policy, Denmark is setting a global example by mandating the use of feed additives for dairy farmers to combat global warming. Read more.
Norwegian government's expects 70% of their dairy cows to be using feed additives by 2027
A new report highlights methane inhibitors as a critical solution for reducing livestock emissions, paving the way for greater action in Norway. Policy moves are incoming. Read more.
We’re excited to see the movement gaining momentum, and we believe the best is yet to come. Follow www.voltagreentech.com/news for the latest updates.
Team
We are today a team of 10 with a great mix of skills and talents across science, engineering, farming and business development. Our team has shown amazing dedication, hard work, and great results during 2024. Want to join us and help solve one of the most urgent challenges facing the world today? We are currently hiring for a Commercial Director and Technical Project Manager, both full-time positions based in Gothenburg. These key additions will drive both sales growth and the development of our service platform, ensuring we meet the increasing demand for methane-reducing solutions.
Financials
In 2024, our revenue remained minimal as we are focused on R&D of Lome and on piloting our service platform to develop great value with our customers. However, we’re entering 2025 with strong momentum and confidence that this will be a breakout year for revenue growth.
We will see growth of revenue in 2025 as our service platform gains traction and continues to deliver value to customers. While revenue from Lome—either as a standalone product or in combination with our service platform—will have to await market release after regulatory approval, we’ve already secured major commercial agreements for its delivery to Swedish customers once launched. This milestone reflects growing market trust and signals strong future demand.
Overall, we feel confident and good about our plan for ahead. The full annual report for 2024 will be released in mid 2025.
To properly fund Volta Greentech’s development the coming time we took in 32 million SEK as investments in 2024 from current shareholders for additional share ownership in the company (press-release). We are very thankful for the great support from our investors and glad for the partnerships between our businesses that also comes out of it.
Thank you to our team and to all our friends and partners for a great 2024.
Looking forward to an exciting 2025!
Best regards,
Fredrik Åkerman
CEO and Co-founder
Volta Greentech
fredrik@voltagreentech.com
