SeaO2, an Amsterdam-based direct ocean capture (DOC) startup, announced that it has acquired more than $2 million (over €2 million) in seed funding for its operations.
The funding saw participation from DOEN Participaties B.V. NEW-TTT fund, Future Tech Ventures, and CarbonFix, along with several angel investors, including Eduard Talman and Siddharth Kambe.
This funding will enable the startup to scale from a prototype level to a pilot launch scheduled for 2025, expected to have a removal capacity of 250 tons of CO2 per year.
Commenting on this milestone development, SeaO2 CEO and co-founder Ruben Brands explained that so far, the startup has operated with means acquired with the help of grants, subsidies, early customers, as well as personal investments.
According to Brands, this seed funding comes as a recognition of the company’s hard work and dedication, and it will serve to accelerate SeaO2’s work towards reaching their goal of removing a megaton of carbon dioxide by 2030 and a gigaton by 2045.
The startup’s promising Direct Ocean Capture (DOC) technology extracts carbon from seawater, returning the filtered, CO2-free water to the ocean. This process not only eliminates the excess carbon dioxide, but it also improves the seawater’s ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
Through its partnerships with organizations like XPRIZE, TU Delft, Wetsus, Klarna, and Redstack, SeaO2 has managed to achieve meaningful growth in the climate tech realm.
The company’s collaborative CO2 removal project with Paebbl was selected among the top 100 of the XPRIZE competition, further attesting to SeaO2’s industry relevance.
Having gathered knowledge from its participation in accelerator programs like CEEZER, Blue Invest, AirMiners, and Remove, SeaO2 is currently involved in the PortXL, Creative Destruction Lab / Xprize CDR program, and Ocean Vision program.
With the recently acquired funding, besides developing a pilot project, SeaO2 will also focus on growing its team and adopting a Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) system for its carbon removal activities.
Read more: Mitsubishi And VTT Sign MOU On Direct Ocean Carbon Capture
