Frontieras saw a missed opportunity in what others were burning.
Coal is one of the planet’s most abundant energy resources, but the global shift to alternative energy cast a shadow over the industry.
Frontieras envisioned a way to unlock coal’s value for the clean energy era. Its patented FASForm™ Solid Carbon Fractionation process separates coal into valuable commodities, including fuel, fertilizer, and industrial carbon, without burning it during fractionation.
To reach commercial scale, Frontieras needed to overcome the sector’s funding headwinds and find investors who believed in its zero-waste approach and would back its next stage.
Finding a new path to capital
Frontieras’ founders invested in their vision long before anyone else did. CEO and co-founder Matthew McKean describes an investment climate that steered capital away from fossil fuels, making funding difficult to find.
For seven years, McKean and co-founder Joseph Witherspoon paid out of pocket to develop the technology and secure patent protection. McKean also built an early base of roughly 200 investors, raising capital one relationship at a time to finance testing and validation.
Funding its next stage meant reaching beyond those early relationships. But McKean wanted an alternative to capital providers whose ownership demands could mean giving up too much of the company. Frontieras pursued Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) and Regulation A+. After comparing fundraising providers and platforms, the company chose DealMaker.
“DealMaker brought together the investment platform, marketing support, and broker-dealer services we were looking for. Their straightforward, professional approach gave me confidence in the partnership.”
Matthew McKean, CEO and Co-Founder, Frontieras North America
Coal’s Rockefeller moment
To win over investors without an engineering background, Frontieras needed to make a complex industrial process easy to grasp.
The campaign’s “Rockefeller moment” concept drew on a familiar industry: oil refining. Just as refineries separate crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, Frontieras aimed to separate coal into valuable fuels and materials without burning it during fractionation.
Frontieras and DealMaker brought that story to life in a cinematic pitch video filmed in Hollywood. Frontieras’ investor website presented the opportunity and connected visitors to DealMaker’s platform, where they could complete electronic agreements, submit verification information, and fund their investments.
“DealMaker has a very good portal for bringing investors through the door.”
Matthew McKean
The next challenge was finding the right audiences. DealMaker’s Ad Network connected Frontieras with prospective investors through targeted newsletters, sponsored articles, and affiliate placements. Longer-form stories gave Frontieras room to explain its technology and vision for transforming American energy, while placements on other digital platforms extended the campaign’s reach.
Ads on Meta and Google encouraged people who had already shown interest to return and invest. Live webinars gave prospective investors direct access to McKean, who shared company progress and answered their questions.
An army of advocates
One in five shareholders invested more than once during Frontieras’ Reg A+ offering. Some invested more than 10 times.
Frontieras cultivated that support from the start by giving existing shareholders advance notice of the raise and an opportunity to invest with an early shareholder bonus. As its audience grew, Frontieras and DealMaker tailored emails, text messages, and outreach to each stage of the investment process, from initial interest and pending investments to ongoing shareholder engagement.
Progress updates gave shareholders reasons to consider investing again, including Frontieras breaking ground on its first commercial-scale facility in West Virginia. The company kept shareholders informed through three share-price changes, each tied to an offering milestone.
Frontieras shared regular video updates through a private shareholder channel, keeping investors connected as the company expanded.
“They did not just write checks. They brought other people to the table.”
Matthew McKean
McKean says shareholders introduced others to the opportunity and contributed professional connections, industry expertise, and local knowledge.