Industrial heat, used by businesses as diverse as breweries, food processors, chemical manufacturers and paper mills, is one of the last bastions of fossil fuels. It’s very difficult to start a fire when you need to heat something.
But recently, a handful of startups have begun exploring ways to generate heat using electricity. Some, like Rondo, Antura and Forth Power, are using cheap wind and solar power to heat specialized bricks to thousands of degrees, storing the heat for later use. Others, like Skyfin Technologies, have developed industrial-scale heat pumps that use a series of compressors to achieve the desired temperature.
Heat pumps are particularly well-suited to providing the non-burning heat used by food and beverage manufacturers. For example, New Belgium Brewing Company last year approved Fixed AtmosZero’s 650kW heat pump boiler at its Colorado headquarters.
This is exactly the type of installation it is targeting. Karman Industriesa heat pump startup that has been operating in the shadows until now. To replace industrial boilers, the company is taking inspiration from SpaceX rockets, co-founder and CEO David Terras told TechCrunch.
“Technologically, what we’re building is very similar to a Raptor engine in terms of speed, pressure and temperature,” he added.
Like other heat pumps, the Karman uses compressors to transfer heat. But unlike your kitchen refrigerator, which uses a simpler compressor, the Karman will use turbo engines to get the job done.
Turbofans, which can spin at incredible speeds, are widely used in rockets to pump fuel. Turbofans aren’t yet common in heat pumps, though another startup, Evari, is developing one for use in homes and electric vehicles.
Inside a heat pump, the speed of the turbines helps reduce the size of the device, moving the same amount of heat as a conventional compressor, but in a smaller volume. The largest Karmann compressor will fit into a frame up to eight feet long and six feet in diameter. Smaller models will be four to five feet long and two to three feet in diameter. None of them will require oil, which is essential for most other heat pumps, simplifying design and maintenance.
Heat pumps can typically only “raise” a temperature by a certain amount. So to reach the temperatures required by industrial users, even those who only need low-grade heat—up to 150°C—heat pump manufacturers typically chain compressors together, each one raising a portion of the total heat. Each additional compressor adds cost and complexity.
“Compared to other systems out there, doing the same amount of lift that might take about five or six stages, we can do it in one or two stages,” Teres said.
Karman already has some experience in industrial heat thanks to co-founder and CTO Chiranjeev (CJ) Kalra, who was previously CTO at Antora and VP of power generation at Heliogen. Tearse previously worked at aerospace startup Skyryse and Riot Ventures, where Karman was incubated. Riot led a $4 million seed investment in Karman with participation from Space VC, the company exclusively told TechCrunch.
While it’s still early days for the company, Terce said he’s confident the company’s first prototype, Thermal01, will be cost-competitive with natural gas in certain regions and for certain operations. He expects the prototype to be ready for installation at a customer site in the first half of 2026.