Is Carbo Culture another white climate tech startup with high ambitions about carbon removal helping enterprises meet their Net Zero goals? Come to think of environmental activism, the Nordic is a leader in marketing their environmental solutions. In this context, is Carbo Culture a Nordic-American climate tech startup, a net-zero, or more? Is it another aspirational Nordic startup leaning on climate concerns to absorb the clean funds allocated for climate tech startups? Before we evaluate anything, we got to understand the premises of the subject.
Let’s start with the premises of Nordic-American climate tech startup Carbo Culture, which aims at carbon removal. Carbo Culture aims to help global enterprises meet their Net Zero goals. Now, you are intrigued about what is a Net Zero goal? The tip of the net-zero goal is a country’s ability to offset its carbon emissions through a carbon absorption/ removal strategy. To realize a Net Zero carbon emission status, a country frames policies that require enterprises to deliver on the mission. Download Net-Zero by 2050 pdf.
Going back to the premise of this climate tech startup. Any living organism contains carbon, which, when decomposes, releases CO2 and other harmful greenhouse gases. Imagine just the human population on planet Earth, and you can estimate trillion tons of CO2. Enters Biochar as a breakthrough solution, which, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is one of the most promising CO2 negative emissions technologies. Here, Carbo Culture biochar is the conversion of biomass sequestered from environmental exposure into a stable, solid form for over a thousand years.
Here, Carbo Culture’s patented technology successfully removes significant carbon from the atmosphere. Their breakthrough carbon-negative technology produces high-grade, consistent, and steady quality biocarbon. They work with agricultural and forestry woody biomass residues. The process runs at a high temperature producing no bio-tars but consistent, high purity, low ash material. Synthetic gas and heat are produced to utilize the entire residue biomass. The technology, not for sale, can be installed close to the feedstock to avoid additional carbon emissions in the process of transportation.
Currently, Carbo Culture retains 50% of the absolute carbon in the biomass. The firm can yield 25-33% high-temperature carbons depending on the input biomass. As already discussed, gases produced, but not methane can be processed for energy over time. The Nordic, a cold region, places closer to the facility use the excess heat for water heating or industrial processes (drying, pasteurizing). According to Carbo Culture, oxidizing (burning) 1 ton of carbon makes 3.66t of CO2 (44/12). They keep it away from atmospheric exposure, so reversely, 1 t contains 3.12t CO2 in a stable, solid form. The resultant BBiocharworks “in nutrient and runoff retention, preventing other greenhouse gases from bacterial processes and the removal of toxins.”
Pia Henrietta K and Christopher Carstens, along with their entire team, have leveraged their technical know-how and inventiveness to tackle climate issues that may be an outcome of a specific geography or an industry but affect humanity at scale. Going through Henrietta’s blog on Medium explains how a woman in science doubles up as a woman in technology and a woman in business. Henrietta’s blog, “Carbo Culture’s carbon removal is now certified!” informs of a person with grit and determination for Net Zero impact realization. Talking about Carbo Culture is also an opportunity to introduce Pia Henrietta K as the founder of StartX, “a collection of 1200+ serial entrepreneurs, industry experts, tenured Stanford professors, and 700+ well-funded growth-stage startups, including Lime, Branch, Life360 (IPO), Poynt, Patreon, Kodiak Sciences (IPO) and more.”
The role of venture capital in promoting climate tech startups globally is crucial. With climate change being a major concern and many large industries responsible for the damage they are hesitant to discuss and address, climate tech startups, not limited to Carbo Culture, are initiatives that require every attention of media and global venture capitalists. There is a reason why venture capitalists should focus increasingly on climate tech startups for the challenges therein are gold and thus highly profitable for the planet and on returns. How can we hack the branch on which we sit; that was only feasible for Kalidasa, right?
According to Crunchbase, Carbo Culture has raised $7.1M as of July 22, 2021, in four rounds, including Pre-Seed, two Seed rounds, and a grant. Their latest funding was raised on Apr 14, 2021, from a Seed round. The Nordic climate tech startup has fifteen investors, including Alex Patist and Cherry Ventures, among the latest ones. Also present among the investors is the notable Übermorgen Ventures. The funds are allocated for the product and resource development of Europe’s would-be largest carbon removal facility. So, here we revise our opening lines, “Is Carbo Culture another white is a climate tech startup with high ambitions about carbon removal helping enterprises meet their Net Zero goals? To sequester carbon biomass from the atmosphere for up to 1000 years.
Carbo Culture is onboarding clients from Northern California, the US and Northern Europe for their 2022 roster of impacts to build carbon-negative cities and carbon-negative industrial practices. The business explains “how green roofs, urban green spaces, and stormwater management interact with natural ecosystem cycles to improve urban infrastructure and resilience. Green infrastructure improves water runoff, pollution control, climate adaptation/mitigation, and the overall quality of city life.” Businesses responsible for the substantial release of carbon or have CSR commitment to deliver on the Net Zero mission have Carbo Culture as an able partner.
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