Octavia Carbon, a Kenyan-based cleantech startup, has raised a $5 million seed round. The company will use the funds to build its Direct Air Capture (DAC) storage plant.

Direct air capture technology removes carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere by drawing air into a machine, filtering out the carbon dioxide, and storing it safely underground.  Excess CO2 in the atmosphere depletes the earth’s ozone layer, increasing ultraviolet (UV) radiation that can cause skin cancer, cataracts, and plant damage. 

Launched in 2022 by Martin Freimüller and Duncan Kariuki, Octovia Carbon designs, builds, and uses machines to capture CO2 from the atmosphere. Those machines take carbon dioxide and store it underground, keeping it out of the atmosphere. 

In Kenya, this CO2 is liquefied and injected into the porous basalt of the Rift Valley, where it gradually mineralizes into solid rock.

Freimüller and Kariuki built their first carbon capture machine on a kitchen table and plan to open the first phase of Octavia’s plant this year with the new funding. 

The seed round was led by Lateral Frontier and E4E Africa, with participation from Catalyst Fund, Launch Africa, Fondation Botnar, and Renew Capital.

“This funding enables us to soon become the world’s second DAC company to complete the full cycle of deploying CO2 capture and geological storage in the field.” said the Co-founder and CEO at Octavia, Martin Freimüller. 

Octavia is among 18 direct air capture plants globally—including Climeworks and Carbon Engineering—building machines specifically designed to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere using DAC technology.  These companies are pivotal to achieving the United Nations’ global climate goals of carbon removal.

“What sets us apart is our ability to harness Kenya’s abundant geothermal energy, especially waste heat, to significantly lower the costs of DAC,” said Freimüller. Octavia Carbon claims it uses geothermal energy wastes to service 80% of its electricity needs.

Octavia Carbon generates revenue primarily by selling carbon credits to corporations or individuals looking to offset their carbon emissions. Companies buy carbon credits to neutralize their carbon footprint. The company claims it has pre-sold 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Back-of-napkin math suggests the company could have earned over $1 million in revenue from that sale. 

Currently, it costs $680 to $820 to extract a ton of CO2 and Octavia wants to reduce this to around $100. With increased efficiency, it can improve its margins and output—it aims to capture of 1,000 tons of CO2 per year. 

“Scaling for us involves increasing our carbon removal efforts far beyond Project Hummingbird’s initial capacity of 1,000 tons of CO2 per year,” Freimüller notes. 

Octavia Carbon also aims to become an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) for DAC technology, allowing it to sell DAC machines to project developers globally.”