Phlair (formerly Carbon Atlantis), a company developing a carbon capture system to remove unavoidable CO₂ emissions, announced that it has raised €14.5M in a seed round for the expansion of its footprint and further innovation of its Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology.

Direct air capture (DAC) technologies extract CO₂ directly from the atmosphere, and can be used anywhere – unlike alternative technologies like carbon capture, which are used at the point of emission – and thus are useful for capturing CO₂ generated by cars, planes, and trucks. The captured CO₂ is then stored, and can be used for a variety of purposes. According to a major study released in 2021 by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C, necessary to reduce the impact of climate change, 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.

Phlair’s innovation, the company says, utilizes off-the-shelf components and is powered solely by electricity, which is used to power a pH-swing mechanism for CO₂ capture, allowing for “rapid scalability with high durability.” In addition, the system comes with a built-in energy storage mechanism, eliminating the need for additional expensive battery storage, the company added. Phlair’s partners use the captured CO₂ for permanent storage, or to manufacture CO2-negative chemicals.

Phlair plans to use the funding to bring its DAC plants online in 2025, and to supply the systems to a roster of early customers such as Shopify, Stripe, Klarna, and Deep Sky. The raise will accelerate the development of two 260 t-CO2/year FOAK plants, Electra 01 and Electra 02, the company said, adding that it also lays the foundation for its first large >20,000 t-CO2/year commercial plant, Dawn, scheduled to open in 2026.

Phlair founder & CEO Malte Feucht, said:

“Our DAC system is purposefully designed for mass manufacturing. Combining our manufacturability with rapid execution, we are able to start addressing the world’s urgent need for scalable DAC solutions and deliver meaningful volumes. All of this while driving costs down toward our long-term goal of sub $100/tCO2, putting us in a great position to lead this industry.”

The financing round was led by Extantia Capital, with participation from Planet A and Verve Ventures, and includes a €2.5 million grant (USD $2.78 million) from the EIC accelerator. Existing investors Atlantic Labs, Counteract, and UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators also participated in the round, which the company said was oversubscribed.

Torben Schreiter, Partner at Extantia Capital, said:

“Scaling DAC while aggressively driving down the costs is no small feat. We are convinced Phlair is uniquely positioned to lead the third wave of DAC companies (DAC 3.0), as they place emphasis not just on price but also on manufacturability. The team is nothing short of outstanding, and we are impressed by their speed of execution.”