Specialist decarbonization investor, Climate Investment (“CI”), today announces that it has invested in Trace Carbon Solutions (“Trace” or the “Company”), a leading North American carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”) development platform. Following the CI investment, Trace will have over $420 million of equity capital commitments from Quantum Capital Group (“Quantum”), CI, and Trace management.
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Trace develops low-cost CCS assets and infrastructure across North America. The management team’s successful track record developing, constructing, and operating midstream assets has direct parallels to delivering projects across the CCS value chain. The firm’s collaborative model seeks to work with partners to develop, construct, and operate projects that will significantly reduce CO2 emissions and help partners achieve their decarbonization goals.
CI has deep expertise in CCS, providing both the risk capital and the technical expertise necessary to drive forward CCS technologies and projects. To date, CI has invested in eight companies in the sector through its maiden Catalyst Fund I. The firm sees investing in CCS platforms such as Trace as an efficient and accelerated path to mobilizing and scaling CCS solutions for heavy-emitting sectors, including oil & gas, cement, and steel.
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“Trace is excited to announce this new investment and partnership with CI. CI’s background in investing across the CCS value chain will be highly valuable to our team as we continue to develop our projects across North America,” said Josh Weber, Trace’s Chief Executive Officer. “One of our core beliefs at Trace is to surround ourselves with capital providers who can be value-added partners. We believe CI’s technical expertise and industry knowledge will accelerate the growth of the broader Trace platform.”
“We are pleased to welcome CI into the Trace platform. CI’s stellar reputation in CCS speaks volumes about the knowledge and capabilities of the CI team,” said Rob Meister, Managing Director of Quantum. Blake Webster, Partner at Quantum, added “We are excited about the project pipeline Trace has built to date, and we believe that CI will prove to be an invaluable partner throughout the development and operational phases of these projects.”
“Trace has developed an operating model that we believe can accelerate the buildout of CCS infrastructure. The firm has built an exceptional management team with proven expertise in developing gas infrastructure projects,” said CI Investment Principal Joey Bernica, who will join the Trace Board. “Its focus on working collaboratively with partners to reduce industrial CO2 emissions reflects CI’s own operating ethos. CCS is a sector we know well and the opportunity to work alongside two such established and high-caliber partners in Trace and Quantum is a very exciting prospect. We are confident that together we can deliver cost-efficient CCS solutions to companies across multiple industrial sectors.”
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