Montréal-based cleantech company CarbiCrete has secured an additional $6 million USD as part of a second close of its Series A round. The new funding brings the round total to $23.5 million CAD.
The $6 million investment, which comprises $4.5 million in equity and $2.3 million in debt, saw the participation of Québec firms MacKinnon, Bennett & Co., Fonds économie circulaire, Fonds de Solidarité FTQ, and Fondaction which also recently invested in Talent.com’s $120 million USD Series B round in March. It also included French manufacturing company Saint-Gobain and Singapore-based Aera VC.
“We want to continue…developing carbon removal technology in Canada, before we share our homegrown carbontech solution with the rest of the world.”
– Chris Stern
With the cumulative $23.5 million, CarbiCrete’s total funding sits at $40 million CAD to date.
A spokesperson for CarbiCrete told BetaKit that the company chose to do its Series A across multiple rounds because it wanted to secure capital before it finalized the second close investors.
Chris Stern, CarbiCrete’s CEO, said that ensuring the “lion’s share” of incoming investments come from Canadian sources was a priority for the company.
“We’re a Quebec-based Canadian company,” said Stern. “We want to continue generating IP and developing carbon removal technology in Canada, before we share our homegrown carbontech solution with the rest of the world. Our current investor base, which includes significant contributions from Quebec-based entities, will allow us to do that.”
Founded in 2016 by Stern and Mehrdad Mahoutian (CTO), CarbiCrete is a carbon removal technology company that is developing low-cost building solutions that are designed to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Initially developed at McGill University, its offering enables the production of cement-free, carbon-negative concrete.
CarbiCrete’s process uses slag from steel factories, an industrial by-product, to replace cement as a binding ingredient in precast concrete products. This system involves injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into the fresh concrete to provide strength, while permanently isolating the CO2 within the resulting products. It claims that for every tonne of concrete produced using their process, 150 kilograms of CO2 are removed.
RELATED: CarbiCrete secures $15 million CAD to scale carbon removal tech
This recent investment follows the $15 million CAD ($12 million USD) that CarbiCrete raised in March, classifying it as the first close of its Series A.
CarbiCrete’s past financings include a $3.5 million investment from Montréal-based private equity firm Innovobot and the environmental division of Harsco Corporation in 2019; $500,000 in repayable financial support from Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions; $2.5 million in debt financing from SQN Venture Partners; and $4 million in grants from the federal and Québec governments.
According to CarbiCrete, the cumulative amount raised in its Series A round will support the company in the commercialization stage of its pilot project at Patio Drummond. CarbiCrete said this initiative will expand its headcount and allow for the acceleration of its product development, targeting customers in Quebec, Ontario, and Europe.
Featured image from CarbiCrete.