Carbon Upcycling raises $34M Series A led by BDC Capital and Climate Investment

Carbon Upcycling Technologies Inc., a decarbonization tech solutions provider, has closed a $34 million (US$26M) Series A funding round co-led by BDC Capital’s Climate Tech Fund and Climate Investment.

Other participating investors include Clean Energy Ventures, angel investor collective CEVG, Amplify Capital, and strategic investors Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, CRH Ventures, and Cemex Ventures.

For what: The company says the funding will be used to deploy multiple commercial projects, including two co-located directly at cement plants.

The tech: These projects will aim to validate the cost-effectiveness of Carbon Upcycling’s all-electric solution that mineralizes CO₂ emissions from industrial facilities and upcycles industrial byproducts into materials that reduce the carbon footprint of cement and concrete.

CEO says: “Closing this round is a major milestone on the road to becoming the most impactful carbon tech company of this decade,” said Apoorv Sinha, founder and CEO of Carbon Upcycling. “Over the next year, our mission is to demonstrate our technology's versatility, scalability, and operational elegance. Proving significant, cost-effective decarbonization potential in the cement industry is possible without a green premium.”

Why it matters: “Carbon Upcycling is a prime example of a Canadian company addressing a high-emitting sector, like cement, with a unique and patented climate technology using industrial byproducts," said Pascal Lanctot, a partner with the Climate Tech Fund at BDC Capital.

• Yes, and: “The scale-up of the company’s technology will enable cross-industrial collaboration between cement, steel, mining, and other heavy industries and help build a clean, low-carbon, circular economy, explained Lanctot, in a statement. “This is exactly what our Climate Tech Fund II aims to do.”

Get nerdy: “Scaleable, verifiable carbon reduction technology that can be implemented globally is crucial,” said Mike Bishop, an investment director at Climate Investment. “Eight percent of global CO2 emissions result from the production of cement and concrete. Carbon Upcycling's technology could decarbonize a sizeable portion of these sector emissions, and importantly, the next round of projects will validate that the technology can outperform ordinary Portland cement on both cost and performance.”

Going global: Carbon Upcycling’s commercial project deployments in Canada and the United Kingdom will be the first to integrate carbon capture and utilization at a cement plant. The company’s projects and research are also being supported by grants from the Government of Canada, UK Research and Innovation, and the US Department of Energy through work with the Colorado National Renewable Energy Laboratory.