With a €43M EU grant and €1.2M from a VC, this startup plans to show CO2 emissions into gold – TechCrunch
The worldwide drawback of an over-abundance of CO2 within the environment is ongoing, and an enormous space that must be addressed, given the quantity pumped out by trade. It’s hoped that if carbon dioxide might be transformed on the level of emission, we might cope with the local weather disaster loads quicker and create a sustainable carbon financial system.
There are just a few firms attempting to deal with this. Zurich-based Climeworks is capturing CO2 from the air by way of industrial carbon dioxide elimination expertise, and has raised $784M to this point. US-based Lanzatech is doing one thing comparable, turning turning carbon into feedstock. It has raised $310.4M.
Now Copenhagen-based BioTech firm SecondCircle thinks it additionally has a novel method.
It claims to have the ability to seize CO2 from industrial emitters on the level of emission utilizing ‘artificial biology’ to develop biocatalysts (micro organism). These then convert the carbon dioxide into chemical compounds which might be offered again to trade. If it cane be scaled-up, this might flip even emissions right into a income alternative.
The corporate has now closed a €1.2M Pre-Seed spherical led by Berlin-based early stage investor Atlantic Labs. But it surely has much more to play with than that. It additionally has a €43m EU grant to scale-up the method, as it’s a part of a consortium which obtained money from the EU’s Horizon 2020 analysis and innovation programme. Dubbed “PyroCO2” the mission goals to exhibit the large-scale conversion of commercial carbon emissions into value-added chemical substances and supplies.
SecondCircle founders
Torbjørn Ølshøj Jensen, co-founder and CEO of SecondCircle stated in a press release: “We strongly consider that we will solely clear up the worldwide CO2 drawback by constructing new approaches for sustainable worth creation from inevitable emissions.”
Artificial biology’ expertise is already beginning to be broadly utilized in quite a lot of areas. SecondCircle spun out of the Biosustain NNF Middle for Biosustainability on the Danish Technical College. Based in 2020 and based mostly in Copenhagen, the corporate is run by the founding crew Alex Toftgaard Nielsen, Stephanie Redl, Torbjørn Ølshøj Jensen.
“By capturing carbon on the supply and changing it into extremely priceless merchandise, SecondCircle has the potential to scale back clients’ emissions and concurrently flip the unit economics of carbon seize on its head by lastly having a worthwhile use case. Supporting this crew was a no brainer for us,” added Max Kufner, Principal at Atlantic Labs.