GA Drilling secures $44m investment to bring pioneering geothermal drilling tech to market

The NexTitan downhole anchor and drive drilling tool (source: screenshot, GA Drilling website)

Carlo Cariaga 3 Mar 2026

GA Drilling has secured a $44.1 million investment that will go towards the full commercial deployment of its NexTitan technology, a downhole anchoring and drive tool designed for ultra-deep drilling for both geothermal and oil and gas applications.

The funding consists of $24.7 million in fresh capital and $19.4 million converted from a SAFE investment raised last year. The round is led by TomEnterprise, the investment platform founded by Thomas von Koch, former CEO of EQT, with participation from Underground Ventures. Nabors also participates in the round as an investor and strategic industrial partner, bringing deep drilling expertise and operating one of the world’s largest drilling rig fleets.

“This investment gives us the capital and confidence to move decisively from advanced development into commercial validation,” said Tony Branch, CEO of GA Drilling.

“NexTitan has the potential to materially reduce drilling costs, and these funds allow us to prove that at scale with real-world data. Our priority now is execution. Demonstrating performance in the field is what ultimately earns trust in this industry, and that’s exactly what this investment enables us to do. ”

The investment will mark the shift of GA Drilling from technology development to commercial execution and delivery. This follows the field deployment of NexTitan at a drilling facility in Norway, where it successfully demonstrated grip and thrust performance in both casing and open hole conditions with a measured output of 32,000 lbf. This validates the core functionality of the technology under real-world downhole conditions, thus confirming its readiness for the next phase of commercial validation.

An investment of this size for hard-tech energy solutions for geothermal is also notable because of its rarity. The investment ranks among the largest European funding rounds of late 2025 and among the very top in hardware and industrial technology. As Igor Kocis, Founder of GA Drilling, puts it: “Securing this level of investment validates both the technology and the long-term vision behind NexTitan as a genuinely transformative drilling solution for the market.”

Strengthening industrial collaboration for technology development

The newly secured capital will be used to finance large-scale testing, performance validation and progression of NexTitan to Technology Readiness Level 7 (TRL 7).

NexTitan is the world’s first downhole anchoring and drive tool designed for deep, ultra-deep drilling and ultra-long reach drilling. It addresses the challenge of high upfront drilling costs of geothermal projects by enabling faster and more efficient deep drilling. This helps geothermal developers significantly reduce capital expenditures.

The announcement follows GA Drilling’s 2024 partnership with Petrobras, established to accelerate the development and validation of NexTitan. That collaboration marked the company’s first major commercial engagement and laid the groundwork for the next phase, proving the technology in operational environments.

To support this transition, GA Drilling has also recently updated its leadership structure. This move aims to strengthen the company’s operational and commercial capabilities to operate as more of a customer-facing technology company that is focus on delivery, reliability, and performance.

With secured funding and a clear focus on field performance, GA Drilling is now actively seeking geothermal developers and oil and gas operators to collaborate on commercial projects.

Source: RigZone