Calgary-based cleantech startup Carbon Upcycling has closed an $18-million USD ($24.5-million CAD) convertible note investment round as it continues to develop its carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technology.
The round was led by Builders Vision, a Chicago-based impact investment platform that says it offers “versatile philanthropic, investment and advocacy tools to people and organizations building a more humane and healthy planet.” The firm will join Carbon Upcycling’s board as an observer, a spokesperson told BetaKit in an email.
Carbon Upcycling says it has raised $95.5-million CAD to date from capital funding and grants.
The round also saw participation from returning investors, including the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Climate Investment (the green investment arm of an association of oil and gas producers), Amplify Capital, and strategic investors CRH Ventures, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, and TITAN Group.
The funding is being used for the company’s project pipeline and corporate growth, the spokesperson said.
Carbon Upcycling said that the investment builds on a period of recent momentum, as it develops its flagship CCU project at its Ash Grove cement plant in Mississauga, Ont., west of Toronto, and executes on a newly signed memorandum of agreement with investor TITAN Group. The agreement with TITAN, signed earlier this month, outlines plans for Carbon Upcycling to conduct technical feasibility studies at two TITAN cement plants.
“Expanding the scope of our partnership with Carbon Upcycling from investment to project exploration aims to scale up the production of innovative, high-performance cementitious solutions,” TITAN Chief Innovation and Sustainability Officer Leonidas Canellopoulos said in a statement regarding the partnership.
Founded in 2014 by CEO Apoorv Sinha, Carbon Upcycling’s CCU solution combines carbon dioxide with local industrial byproducts and natural materials to create “high-performance” alternative materials for cement and concrete. The Calgary startup has previously claimed that its tech can reduce the amount of cement used in concrete production by up to 50 percent.
Carbon Upcycling isn’t the only Canadian company in this space; it competes with the likes of Halifax-based CarbonCure and Montréal-based CarbiCrete. After being named to the Global Cleantech 100 for two consecutive years, Carbon Upcycling was among four Canadian companies that didn’t make the cut this year. The Cleantech 100 is a list meant to predict which cleantech companies will make a substantial impact on the market in the near future.
Carbon Upcycling last raised $26-million USD (then $34.4-million CAD) in a July 2023 round co-led by BDC Capital (through its Climate Tech Fund) and United Kingdom-based Climate Investment, as it looked to deploy its CCU tech at cement plants in North America and Europe. Carbon Upcycling has raised $70-million USD ($95.5-million CAD) to date, including capital funding and grants, the spokesperson told BetaKit.
Feature image courtesy Carbon Upcycling.