Calgary cleantech company Cura has closed a $10-million USD ($14-million CAD) fundraise that it says will accelerate commercial development and scale its footprint near Taber, Alta.
Erin Bobicki, Cura
“There’s four trillion in sunk assets in this industry.”
Cura announced the raise—its second such tranche of funding—on Thursday morning, telling BetaKit the round was led by Zacua Ventures, with additional participation from Sandpiper Ventures, Vantage Futures, Amplify Capital, the University of Calgary’s UCEED fund, the Mount Rundle Club, and Sebastian Becker. Zacua’s Juan Nieto will be taking a position on Cura’s board of directors.
Founded in 2025, Cura develops systems to produce low-carbon cement, offsetting greenhouse gas emissions in the concrete industry that contribute roughly seven percent of global emissions. Cement—which binds together concrete—is most commonly created from limestone heated in fossil-fuel-powered kilns that can account for up to two thirds of the emissions associated with the concrete industry. Cura instead uses an electrochemical process on the limestone, while also separating C02 from the material. The company claims itcan reduce emissions from cement creation by anywhere from 30 to 85 percent.
Capital expenditure
Cura plans to split its newfound capital between three primary initiatives. The first is hiring several positions across the company’s engineering and business development departments. CEO and co-founder Erin Bobicki said the company’s headcount is currently 15, but Cura has plans to raise that number to 20 by the end of the year.
“We’ve already started hiring. We’ve hired three [positions] as of late,” Bobicki told BetaKit in an interview. “Mostly we’re hiring engineers and scientists—we have a number of folks we need on the electrochemical side developing our core IP … We are also going to be building out our business development teams.”
The bulk of the capital raised will go toward building out Cura’s pilot plant project, which is a partnership with Grand Forks Concrete, a Taber-based precast concrete manufacturer. That pilot project aims to produce 100 tonnes of cement per year using Cura’s technology, with Bobicki saying the plant is expected to begin commissioning in the first quarter of 2027.
“They are very keen to not just get to the pilot, but to get to the commercial demonstration facility,” Bobicki said of the partnership.
The commercial demonstration facility Bobicki referenced is the other part of Cura’s capital expenditure.
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“Following on the successful demonstration of this pilot in 2027, our intention is to go to a commercial demonstration facility at about 30,000 tonnes [of cement] per year,” Bobicki said. “A portion of this fundraise is going to engineering that facility, which will be in roughly the same location and with the same partner.”
Those projects, once completed, will aid Cura in both generating early revenue and supplying the startup with the data it needs to scale its technology to meet the demands of the broader industry, which often works in facilities producing upwards of one million tonnes of cement per year.
“In the long term, we actually want to sell equipment to cement producers … to decarbonize their operations,” Bobicki said. “The pilot and the commercial demonstration facility are really about supplying engineering data for the full-scale retrofit plants as well as demonstrating to producers … that the technology works at scale.”
Those projects will run on solar energy from a nearby, Grand Forks-owned solar farm. Bobicki said using renewable energy will allow Cura to achieve the high end of around 85 percent in emissions reduction, compared to traditional cement production.
Meeting the metrics
According to Bobicki, most traditional cement manufacturers produce the highly-sought-after material for about $75 per tonne and retail it for around $150. For Cura, meeting, or even undercutting, those metrics is key to the company’s vision of replacing traditional carbon-heavy methods of production.
“Our goal is … that we can get below that $75 per tonne cost to produce without including any benefits from carbon pricing,” she said. “Our tech allows cement producers to make cement and manage the carbon for the same price they’ve always been making cement at or less.”
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The company is achieving that through several cost-saving methods, including its Curalyte technology, a proprietary platform that underpins Cura’s electrochemical system and reduces the amount of energy required during the electrolysis process, contributing to lower energy costs and higher productivity.
“There’s four trillion in sunk assets in this industry,” Bobicki said. “We’re offering a retrofit solution to decarbonize existing operations with the same feedstock they have to make the product they already have, and to utilize existing assets.”
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtesy Cura.