Climeworks Closes Series B Financing Round
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ETH Spin-off, venture kick and venturelab alumnus Climeworks, provider of solutions for efficiently capturing CO2 out of ambient air, announces the closing of its series B financing round amounting to CHF 3 million. The proceeds will be used to further industrialize Climeworks’ product as well as to build the first commercial scale CO2 capture plant. The round was funded by a group of renowned private investors and the Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB).
Founded in 2009, Climeworks developed its proprietary technology from laboratory to industrial scale. End of 2012 the co-founders Jan Wurzbacher and Christoph Gebald announced the commissioning of its demonstration plant with a capacity of 1 ton CO2 per year which has since then proven successful continuous operation. Currently Climeworks is finalizing the construction of an industrial scale CO2 capture unit with a capacity of 50 tons CO2 per year. This unit represents the final scale-up step of Climeworks’ technology; commercial plants will be built from units of the same size in a modular way to meet the individual customer demands. With the closure of their series B financing round, Climeworks pushes the industrialization further as co-Founder Christoph Gebald says. And he ads: „At Climeworks we have shown steady and strong progress since closing of our first financing round in December 2011 eventually leading to the final scale-up step of our product. We are confident that the new capital increase will allow us to continue strong and place first Climeworks products on the market.“The answer for a increasing market demand
With air captured CO2 from Climeworks renewable energy can be efficiently stored by producing synthetic fuels using Power-to-Gas or Power-to-Liquids technology. These fuels produced from atmospheric CO2 are carbon-neutral and do not compete with food production for agricultural crop land. There is an ever increasing market demand for such fuels in the context of increasing the share of renewables in our energy mix. In addition, short-term market applications with an annual market volume of CHF 300 million in Europe include CO2 supply for carbonation of drinks, fertilization of greenhouses and packaging of fresh food. Another very important application of Climeworks’ product is atmospheric CO2 supply for renewable fuel production in the mobility sector. The announcement of carmaker Audi about its collaboration with Climeworks on the road to CO2-neutral mobility was a highlight in early 2014. Jan Wurzbacher and Christoph Gebald trained their entrepreneurialskills with venture challenge and were supported by venture kick. Christoph Gebald explains: „venture kick means to strive for the best, constantly stretching and chellenging yourself and makes you act rather than react.”
