Damien Steel has stepped down as CEO of Montréal-based carbon-capture startup Deep Sky ahead of the grand opening of its first direct air capture (DAC) facility.
Steel announced his departure in a LinkedIn post last week, writing that he decided to step away from his role at the up-and-coming cleantech company “After much reflection and for personal reasons.”
“Leading Deep Sky requires unwavering focus and energy, and I’ve come to realize I’m no longer in a position to give it everything it deserves,” Steel wrote. “I’ll be cheering [Deep Sky] on from a new vantage point as I take some needed time for myself [but] my belief in our mission and support for this work remain as strong as ever.”
Steel’s LinkedIn profile now states he is an advisor at Deep Sky.
Deep Sky was founded in 2022 by Hopper co-founders Frederic Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk. The goal is to use technology to capture carbon from the air, ultimately reducing the burden of fossil-fuel emissions and mitigating climate change, while also monetizing it by selling carbon credits.
Steel left his role as the managing partner of Canadian pension giant OMERS Ventures to join Deep Sky in August 2023, which proceeded to close $57.5 million CAD in Series A financing that October. Steel’s LinkedIn profile now states he is an advisor at Deep Sky.
Two Deep Sky directors told The Globe and Mail that the board wanted Steel to stay, but it was his decision to leave.
Steel will remain with Deep Sky for the next several months to transition leadership responsibilities to Deep Sky COO Alex Petre, who is set to take over as CEO. Petre joined Deep Sky this past September, according to her LinkedIn profile, bringing previous experience as the COO of Bird Canada, an electric scooter rental platform. Steel said in his post that Petre has been leading the “successful planning and build” of Deep Sky Alpha, the company’s first DAC facility. It is on track to open in Innisfail, Alta. sometime this summer.
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“We’re very grateful for Damien’s leadership, which has been instrumental in growing Deep Sky into one of the world’s leading carbon removal companies,” a Deep Sky spokesperson said in an email statement to BetaKit. “Alex’s deep experience in operations leadership makes her the ideal person to lead the company as we begin to scale our operations and build larger facilities in the coming years.”
This past December, Deep Sky secured a $40-million USD ($57.3 million CAD) grant from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a climate solution-focused funding platform founded by Bill Gates, to be used towards the DAC facility’s construction. The site is meant to provide infrastructure for eight different DAC technologies that will be tested and validated before scaling to a commercial scale, benchmarked by proprietary Deep Sky software.
When Deep Sky announced the Innisfail site last August, the company said the facility would be operational this winter, but Deep Sky had revised the operational schedule to spring 2025 when it announced the grant funding. The facility is now on track to open in the summer.
Feature image courtesy OMERS Ventures.