It’s been a strong start to the week for carbon capture. It’s only Tuesday and two Australian startups in the sector — KC8 Capture Technologies and Fugu — have already collectively raised over $11 million.
Leading the charge is Melbourne’s KC8 with $10 million, which saw participation from Woodside Energy and Cemex Ventures.
Founded in 2021, the company specialises in carbon capture technology designed for critical hard-to-abate industries, such as cement, steel, power and chemical production.
According to KC8, its technology is able to capture up to 95% of C02 emissions from heavy industrial sources. It is able to do this with its proprietary, non-toxic solvent which has been derived from naturally occurring materials.
The company says this makes the carbon cost capture 50% cheaper and improves energy efficiency by up to 15%.
KC8 says the fresh cash injection will be used to expand the team and roll out key projects across Australia, the US and Mexico.
“Our mission is to provide the most sustainable, cost-effective solution for large-scale abatement,” Greg Ross, executive director of KC8 Capture Technologies, said.
“This investment will accelerate our commercialisation plans and help industries meet their net-zero targets.”
Heading up to Sydney, Fugu has raised at least $1 million in a seed round led by Investible. The company wouldn’t disclose the amount to SmartCompany and it also doesn’t appear in Investible’s Investor Notes.
However, a report by Capital Brief places the amount at “over $1 million” and another by Business News Australia states the full amount was $1.67 million.
The round was led by Jelix and Electrifi Ventures, with participation from Counteract — a UK VC that specialises in carbon removal.
Founded by former SunCable executives Mac Thompson and Dr Luke Marshall, Fugu is developing machines that extract CO2 directly from the air. The design was inspired by their previous work on Mike Cannon-Brooke’s giant solar farm in the Northern Territory.
Fugu’s machines are constructed from mass-manufactured parts and designed for high scalability and easy deployment globally.
According to Fugu, the machines can reduce the cost of capturing atmospheric carbon to a level where green CO2 becomes competitive with fossil-derived energy.
The machines use solid sorbent filters that can be swapped out as more advanced sorbents become available, ensuring continuous improvement in efficiency.
The investment will go towards scaling up hardware and selling C02 to the company’s first customer. It is also looking to expand the team and hopefully get too big for its current R&D facility in Glebe. The long-term goal is to have thousands of machines by 2030.
“To hit our climate targets, we will now need to plant approximately three new Amazon rainforests by 2050, on top of decarbonising industry and society — that will be incredibly hard to do in such a short timeframe,” Dr Marshall said.
“We need new technologies that can accomplish this task at a fraction of the cost and difficulty. Furthermore, some industries will never be completely decarbonised so we must provide a green low-cost solution for them.
“Many companies are trying to do this now but their technology is often difficult to implement in the real world due to cost, deployability or manufacturing limitations.”
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Senior Technology Journalist
A multi-award-winning journalist, Tegan has been reporting on technology, telecommunications and gaming for the past 10 years. She regularly appears on mainstream media channels as an expert tech commentator. Her previous roles include editor of Gizmodo Australia and global reviews editor at Finder. She has also served as a reporter and editor across Business Insider, Lifehacker and Kotaku Australia. Tegan was the co-host of one of the top technology podcasts in Australia, Queens of the Drone Age. You can find her on Twitter @Tegan_Writes.
