Climate solutions startup Mission Zero announced that it has raised £21.8 million (USD$27.7 million) in a Series A financing, with proceeds to be used to help scale its Direct Air Capture (DAC) carbon removal technology.

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 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change mitigation study, 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 2020, Mission Zero provides highly efficient DAC technology aimed at enabling cost-effective carbon removal for a wide range of processes, and locations and at smaller scales. The company’s electrochemical DAC technology, inspired by biological reactions that manage CO2 in the body, pulls air in from the atmosphere using fans, dissolves carbon from the air in a water-based solvent, and utilizes electrodialysis to release the carbon as a gas that can be permanently stored or used.

The funding was provided by 2150, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, World Fund, Fortescue, and Siemens Financial Services.

Christian Jølck, Co-founder and Partner at 2150, said:

“Mission Zero has gone from concept to commercial deployments in just three years and built a team with the technical talent and drive to rapidly deploy the most competitive DAC in the market.”

By the end of 2024, Mission Zero said that it aims to have three fully-funded systems on the ground in projects pioneering CO2 mineralization, carbon-negative building materials, and sustainable aviation fuel. The company has started deploying systems capable of recovering up to 250 tonnes of CO2 a year from the atmosphere, and said that the new funding will help accelerate the development of mass deployable DAC product with a recovery capacity of 1,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Dr Nicholas Chadwick, Mission Zero CEO, said:

“Our new partners’ manufacturing acumen and deep alignment with our vision will be catalytic in allowing us to scale DAC rapidly and responsibly for maximum positive climate impact.”