US oil giant Chevron backs London cleantech firm in $150m funding round
US oil giant Chevron has thrown its weight behind London cleantech firm Carbon Clean today in a $150m funding injection – the largest ever equity round for a ‘point of emission’ carbon capture company.
The funding for Carbon Clean, which specialises in carbon capture for heavy industries like cement and steel, was led by Chevron alongside a host of big name backers including Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, AXA Investment Managers and Samsung Ventures.
Boss at Carbon Clean Aniruddha Sharma told City PM the investor base showed heavy industry was backing carbon capture to drive down emissions fast.
“If you look at our investor base I think one message is quite clear; that they believe in decarbonisation through carbon capture, especially for heavy industry,” he told City PM.
“All our investors are people in the cement business; in the energy generation business; in the oil and gas business. That shows that if you want to decarbonize heavy industry, we need a technology solution right now.”
Sharma said the firm was now eyeing up a growth push and looking to scale up the product “at least three times over next two years” to make one box that can capture 100,000 tonnes of Co2, as well as rolling out to further sites in the US and Europe and bolstering the firm’s core team in the UK.
Chevron bosses said they were “proud” to be backing the firm as it grew.
“Chevron is proud to lead Carbon Clean’s record Series C funding round, and we look forward to partnering with Carbon Clean to help advance Chevron’s pursuit of lower carbon solutions,” Chris Powers, Vice President, CCUS for Chevron New Energies said.
It comes amid a boom in investment into so-called cleantech firms, with UK firms alone attracting £134bn last year – 18 per cent of all European funding into the space – according to data from IP and R&D tax credit firm GovGrant.