Kenyan direct air capture (DAC) company Octavia Carbon has closed a US$5 million seed round to further develop and deploy its groundbreaking technology, which leverages geothermal resources – especially waste heat – to permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
DAC technologies extract CO2 directly from the atmosphere at any location, unlike carbon capture, which is generally carried out at the point of emissions, such as a steel plant. The CO2 can be permanently stored in deep geological formations or used for a variety of applications.
Founded in 2022, Octavia Carbon builds and deploys DAC machines in Kenya, and aims to make the country the world’s most cost-effective place to permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere by 2025. Central to this effort is Project Hummingbird, the company’s pilot DAC+Storage plant, which will be launching by the end of 2024.
Octavia Carbon’s US$5 million seed round was co-led by leading African venture capital firms Lateral Frontiers and E4E Africa, with participation from Catalyst Fund, Launch Africa Ventures, Fondation Botnar, and Renew Capital. The startup has also secured US$1.1m of non-dilutive carbon finance as part of this round, signaling strong market demand for the company’s carbon credits.
“This funding enables us to soon become the world’s second DAC company to complete the full cycle of deploying both CO2 capture and geological storage in the field,” said Martin Freimüller, the startup’s co-founder and CEO.
“Octavia’s Kenyan DAC is revolutionising economic development in Africa. Their globally competitive deep tech will show the world that Africans can and will build the future,” said Samakab Hashi, general partner at Lateral Frontiers.
