2022 was a year marked with milestones and consistent hard work as Boston Metal advanced on our path to commercialize the Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE) platform that will transform steel production and could potentially cut nearly 10% of global carbon emissions. As we worked to raise capital to fund the next stages of development, our engineering team brought a new class of pilot cells online to accelerate the scaleup of our MOE platform technology and we completed and tapped the first-of-its-kind 25,000-amp MOE cell, an important step towards commercialization.
In October, we opened our subsidiary Boston Metal do Brasil to grow our high-value metals business, secured land, and began designing our facilities in the municipality of Coronel Xavier Chaves near São João del Rei, Minas Gerais. In Brazil, we’ll be using our MOE technology to recover value from mining waste, which effectively turns a liability into an asset for mining companies. Our high-value metals business will create early revenue streams as Boston Metal scales the MOE green steel program.
The growth of our team has been a significant driver of our progress. Over the course of the year, we nearly doubled the size of our workforce and now have over 100 employees. Joining in early 2022, SVP of Corporate Fernanda Fenga has been instrumental in building a robust corporate structure with growing HR, finance, IT, and legal teams that have primed us for continued expansion.
The industry and media have taken note of our efforts. In addition to having multiple speaking engagements at steel and metals industry conferences, we were invited to participate in the Breakthrough Energy Summit in October as one of Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Ventures portfolio companies. Boston Metal was also featured at COP27 in the U.S. Department of State’s First Movers Coalition exhibition. Boston Metal joined other leading technology innovators at Vox Media’s 2022 Code Conference, where our CEO Tadeu Carneiro discussed green steel development on a panel focused on sustainable solutions for cities. Leading business and technology publications ran feature stories on our technology, including Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review, The Boston Globe, Folha de São Paulo, Nature, and Scientific American, among others.
As we head into 2023, we’re looking forward to an even greater year of growth and development to realize our mission of decarbonizing the steel industry. Stay tuned in January for big news!
