Montréal-based carbon-capture startup Deep Sky has secured a $40-million USD ($57.3 million CAD) grant from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a climate solution-focused funding platform founded by Bill Gates.
Deep Sky revealed it had sold its first-ever carbon credits to RBC and Microsoft last month.
The funding will be allocated towards the construction of its first direct air capture (DAC) facility Deep Sky Alpha, formerly known as Deep Sky Labs, as well as its associated research and technology testing. Deep Sky claimed Catalyst’s investment is its first-ever in both a Canadian and DAC project.
Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst program funds large demonstration projects and invests in commercial projects that use emerging climate technologies. The program also provides project leaders with infrastructure-investing and project-development expertise. According to Catalyst, it has raised over $1 billion of direct capital to deploy in project funding opportunities to date.
“The financial backing from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst will play a crucial role in helping Deep Sky realize its ambitious goals,” Deep Sky CEO Damian Steel said in a statement. “However, the partnership with Breakthrough Energy Catalyst and their expertise [in] what it takes to build projects at scale [have] already been transformative to Deep Sky.”
Deep Sky announced in August that it had selected Innisfail, Alta. as the site for its first “carbon removal innovation and commercialization centre,” now known as Deep Sky Alpha. 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. Deep Sky said the site would open this winter, have the capacity to capture 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 30,000 tons over a 10-year period, taking into account future expansion.
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Last month, Deep Sky revealed it had sold its first-ever carbon credits to firms including the RBC and Microsoft. The agreement calls for Deep Sky to capture 10,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere over a 10-year period, as well as options to purchase an additional 1 million tons from Deep Sky’s pipeline of commercial projects.
The site’s opening has since been delayed to the spring, with Steel adding that Deep Sky will deliver on its promise to “rapidly scale carbon removals” in 2025.
Deep Sky was founded in 2022 by Hopper co-founders Frederic Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk with the goal of using technology to capture carbon from the air with the hope of ultimately reducing the burden of fossil-fuel emissions and mitigating climate change, while also monetizing it by selling carbon credits. A carbon credit refers to one metric ton of carbon dioxide that has been removed from the atmosphere, which companies can purchase as a way to counteract their emissions of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.
The duo later tapped Steel, an OMERS Ventures managing partner at the time, to lead the company as CEO before securing a $57.5-million CAD Series A round in November 2023.
Feature image courtesy Deep Sky.