Climate tech startup Clairity Technology announced that it has raised $6.75 million in a seed round aimed at scaling its Direct Air Capture (DAC) carbon removal solution.
DAC technology, listed by the IEA as a key carbon removal option in the transition to a net-zero energy system, extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere for use as a raw material or permanently removed when combined with storage. According to the landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change mitigation study released last year, scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C include carbon dioxide removal methods scaling to billions of tons of removal annually over the coming decades, with DAC positioned to potentially account for a significant portion of the total.
Founded in 2022 by Glen Meyerowitz, California-based Clairity has developed a system for capturing dilute CO2 that requires far less infrastructure and energy than DAC focused on pure CO2, utilizing readily available materials and processes that are more energy and capital efficient. The company’s solution uses a solid sorbent approach, coating honeycomb monoliths carbonate salts, which are abundant and durable – enabling them to be used over many cycles – which binds CO2 into the salts’ crystalline structure for collection and concentration. According to Clarity, the process utilizes the company’s reactors, which use traditional, cost effective building material, avoiding the need for massive amounts of concrete and steel required for high-purity systems.
The company created a process with CarbonBuilt, a company whose technology leverages atmospheric CO2 for the production of concrete products that aim to reduce embodied carbon by 70% to 100%. Clairity’s process captured CO2 and fed it directly into CarbonBuilt’s process, where it chemically reacted with CarbonBuilt’s low-carbon binder and became permanently sequestered in the finished concrete.
The round was co-led by Lowercarbon Capital and Initialized Capital.
In a LinkedIn post announcing the seed round, Clairity Technology CEO and Founder Glen Meyerowitz said:
“The climate crisis is severe and the worsening impacts of climate change can be seen everywhere. We need solutions that can be implemented and scaled today to mitigate the worst effects of climate change in the coming years.”