Blaze Energy Advances an ‘Any Engine, Any Fuel’ Maritime Future

(Blaze Energy/Business Wire) Recently announced $6.5M Seed round will accelerate deployment of Blaze Energy’s Flex-Fuel Reformer System with leading maritime industry partners.

Blaze Energy, an energy technology company enabling fuel-flexible engines, announced the closing of a $6.5 million seed financing round led by Propeller Ventures and Catalyzer Ventures. Safar Partners, SOSV, Desai Ventures, and Cartography Capital also participated. The company is on a mission to bring ultimate fuel flexibility to maritime shipping by enabling existing engines to run on multiple fuels, advancing a future where any engine can run on any fuel. The new funding will accelerate commercial deployment through a pilot aboard a commercial vessel with Lomar Shipping, marine engine testing, and expansion of the company’s operations in the U.S. and Norway.

The transition to new maritime fuels is both urgent and uncertain. More than 80% of global trade by volume moves by sea, and vessels are capital intensive assets that remain in service for decades. Shipowners face growing pressures to reduce emissions without viable options for vessels in service and no clear consensus on which future fuels will ultimately dominate. This creates operational and economic challenges: committing a vessel to one fuel constrains where operators source fuel, which infrastructure they depend on, and how they respond as fuel pricing and availability change.

Blaze Energy replaces that uncertainty with flexibility. The company's flagship technology, the Flex-Fuel Reformer System, gives operators the ability to reduce emissions, choose which fuel to bunker, and reduce dependence on a single fuel supply chain or port infrastructure.

“Blaze has developed a customer-centric technology focused on saving money and relieving fuel insecurity,” said Steven Fox, Partner at Propeller Ventures. “We've watched an unprecedented shift in maritime fuel procurement and bunkering driven by prices, geopolitics and regulation. As uncertainty rises, and prices continue to swing, Blaze will be there as the preeminent cost-affordable solution for shipowners.”

By retrofitting their fleets with Blaze Energy’s technology, shipowners can extend asset life and adopt new fuels without having to replace ships outright. Blaze Energy estimates its Reformer System can enable that transition at about 20 times lower cost, while delivering additional fuel savings and embedded decarbonization. Maritime represents an estimated $120B market opportunity, with additional applications including transportation, heavy equipment, mining, and industrial heat.

Blaze Energy’s Reformer System uses compact, engine-integrated fuel reforming hardware to convert leading new fuels, including ammonia, methanol, and LNG, into a hydrogen-rich mixture on board the vessel. This enables hydrogen-assisted combustion using existing engine platforms and within current space constraints.

Future fuels burn more slowly than diesel, the industry’s dominant fuel. Blaze Energy’s System extracts hydrogen from these fuels to match diesel’s combustion properties for effective use in conventional engines. A proprietary heating architecture and high-performance catalyst enable a compact solution available for new fuel integration with existing engine platforms.

Designed for both retrofit and newbuild applications, the Reformer System provides a drop-in pathway for owners and operators to adopt new fuels without replacing existing infrastructure.

“Maritime shipping used to be about moving cargo safely, on-time, and economically,” said Rok Sitar, CEO and Co-Founder at Blaze Energy. “Now operators need to be experts in fuel markets, energy shifts, and geopolitics just to keep vessels running. Blaze exists to cut through that uncertainty, giving shipowners fuel flexibility through their existing assets, so they can stay resilient no matter what is thrown at them.”

The seed round marks a pivotal next phase for Blaze Energy as the company shifts from technical validation to commercial-scale pilot deployments. Recent partnerships announced with Lomar Shipping and Link Marine will bring the technology into real-world maritime applications and establish clear pathways to adoption.

After conducting land-based marine engine testing in Norway, the company will pilot its Reformer System aboard a commercial vessel in 2027 with shipowner Lomar Shipping. Its innovation arm, lomarlabs, has been a key partner and was an investor in Blaze Energy’s pre-seed round. The project will demonstrate the technology under real-world operating conditions, establish a pathway for retrofitting existing vessels, and support a newbuild product launch in 2028.

“Blaze Energy’s Reformer System offers shipowners a practical, cost-effective pathway to meet increasingly stringent emissions requirements while preserving the value of their existing vessels and infrastructure,” said Kristina Johnson, Partner at Catalyzer Ventures. “With global shipping responsible for roughly 3% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, Blaze provides an elegant solution to a difficult challenge: materially reducing emissions without requiring shipowners to replace or fundamentally redesign their fleets.”

With new capital and vessel deployments ahead, Blaze Energy is building toward bringing ultimate fuel flexibility to maritime shipping. READ MORE