Blastr Green Steel completes financing round

Norway-based Blastr Green Steel has completed a second strategic partner financing round, advancing the development of a European integrated ultra-low CO₂ steel value chain with its flagship steel plant in Finland.  

The partner financing round included three of Blastr’s founding investors: Minnesota-based Cargill, Finland-based Tesi and Blastr’s founder Vanir Green Industries. The financing round brought in three new Finland-based investors, including Aurora Infrastructure, Onvest Oy and Security Trading Oy.

“Blastr warmly welcomes the new partners who all share our vision for a more sustainable steel industry and the strong continued commitment from our founding investors,” Blastr Green Steel CEO Mark Bula says. “The successful closing of this second partner round is a real credit to our team and partners, demonstrating the viability of our business model and mine-to-gate value proposition.”

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Blastr says the proceeds of the closing will be used to progress its value chain through its steel plant in Inkoo, Finland, as well as support development of Blastr’s pellet plant, which is slated to produce 6 million metric tons of direct reduced (DR) pellet feedstock annually.

“Blastr’s green steel project is a significant industrial investment for Finland, exactly what the country needs to accelerate its transition to a sustainable future,” Aurora Infrastructure CEO Robin Lindahl says. “This project not only leverages Finland’s renewable energy resources but also creates new jobs and economic opportunities by advancing value-added processing locally. The Inkoo site, with its existing infrastructure and strategic location, is ideally suited for such an initiative. Projects like this are what we want to support at Aurora Infrastructure, and we have a proven track record of serving some of the largest industrial sites in Finland. We want to be a part of building Finland’s future strengths and the establishment of a robust hydrogen economy, meeting the growing demand for green steel.”

“As a family company, we want to be involved in the arrival of green steel in Finland,” Onvest Oy CEO Maria Toivanen says. “We want to support this great green transition project, as we own one of the biggest steel service companies in Finland.”

In late 2024, Blastr submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for its Inkoo plant to the Finnish authorities. The EIA report concluded the facility can be developed in an environmentally sustainable manner, and based on the report, Blastr plans to apply for environmental permits for the Inkoo project this year, the company says.