Afrigather Octavia Carbon, a Kenyan-based cleantech startup, has raised a $5 million seed spherical. The corporate will use the funds to construct its Direct Air Seize (DAC) storage plant.
Direct air seize expertise removes carbon dioxide instantly from the ambiance by drawing air right into a machine, filtering out the carbon dioxide, and storing it safely underground. Extra CO2 within the ambiance depletes the earth’s ozone layer, rising ultraviolet (UV) radiation that may trigger pores and skin most cancers, cataracts, and plant injury.
Launched in 2022 by Martin Freimüller and Duncan Kariuki, Octovia Carbon designs, builds, and makes use of machines to seize CO2 from the ambiance. These machines take carbon dioxide and retailer it underground, protecting it out of the ambiance.
In Kenya, this CO2 is liquefied and injected into the porous basalt of the Rift Valley, the place it steadily mineralizes into strong rock.
Freimüller and Kariuki constructed their first carbon seize machine on a kitchen desk and plan to open the primary section of Octavia’s plant this 12 months with the brand new funding.
The seed spherical was led by Lateral Frontier and E4E Africa, with participation from Catalyst Fund, Launch Africa, Fondation Botnar, and Renew Capital.
“This funding allows us to quickly change into the world’s second DAC firm to finish the total cycle of deploying CO2 seize and geological storage within the subject.” mentioned the Co-founder and CEO at Octavia, Martin Freimüller.
Octavia is amongst 18 direct air seize vegetation globally—together with Climeworks and Carbon Engineering—constructing machines particularly designed to seize CO2 instantly from the ambiance utilizing DAC expertise. These corporations are pivotal to attaining the United Nations’ international local weather objectives of carbon removing.
“What units us aside is our capability to harness Kenya’s ample geothermal vitality, particularly waste warmth, to considerably decrease the prices of DAC,” mentioned Freimüller. Octavia Carbon claims it makes use of geothermal vitality wastes to service 80% of its electrical energy wants.
Octavia Carbon generates income primarily by promoting carbon credit to companies or people seeking to offset their carbon emissions. Corporations purchase carbon credit to neutralize their carbon footprint. The corporate claims it has pre-sold 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Again-of-napkin math suggests the corporate might have earned over $1 million in income from that sale.
At present, it prices $680 to $820 to extract a ton of CO2 and Octavia needs to scale back this to round $100. With elevated effectivity, it may possibly enhance its margins and output—it goals to seize of 1,000 tons of CO2 per 12 months.
“Scaling for us includes rising our carbon removing efforts far past Mission Hummingbird’s preliminary capability of 1,000 tons of CO2 per 12 months,” Freimüller notes.
Octavia Carbon additionally goals to change into an Authentic Tools Producer (OEM) for DAC expertise, permitting it to promote DAC machines to challenge builders globally.”
