Halifax’s CarbonCure Raises $3.5 Million For CO2 Sequestration Technology

Halifax’s CarbonCure Technologies has just closed a $3.5 million Series B round of funding, led by BDC Venture Capital, with an assist from Eagle Cliff Partners of Silicon Valley, Innovacorp from Nova Scotia, Toronto’s 350 Capital and a strategic Shanghai investor.

The funding will contribute to CarbonCure’s growth, both in terms of its North American customer base and the application of its technology from masonry to precast and ready-mix concrete. CarbonCure’s technology sequesters carbon dioxide by injecting it into concrete during the wet-mix phase, which has the side effect of making it stronger while also providing a direct environmental benefit.

The traditional means of curing concrete is by industrial heating. This process is estimated to produce 5% of global greenhouse gases, so CarbonCure’s process represents a double efficiency, both eliminating the production of carbon dioxide during the manufacturing process and sequestering waste carbon dioxide from other sources into its product.

Since bringing their technology to market in January, CarbonCure’s technology has been adopted by Chicago’s Northfield Block and New Jersey’s Anchor, which are both divisions of Oldcastle APG, North America’s largest producer of precast and concrete masonry.

“CarbonCure is a promising Canadian company that we believe has the potential to generate significant returns for its investors, while positively impacting one of the world’s largest industries,” said recent appointee to CarbonCure’s Board of Directors and Senior Managing Partner with the BDC Venture Capital Energy/Cleantech Fund, Tony Van Bommel.

The deal represents not only BDC’s first investment in CarbonCure, but also its first investment in an Atlantic Canadian company since it backed Fredericton’s Radian6 in 2009. Perhaps Van Bommel, a graduate of Dalhousie University, is keeping a closer eye on the region because of his experience there.

The participation of Eagle Cliff is significant, based as they are in Silicon Valley. “We’re thrilled to be a part of the CarbonCure story and look forward to working with the CarbonCure team to make green concrete mainstream,” said Rebecca Levin, Managing Partner at Eagle Cliff.

The Shanghai investment is a promising angle, too, offering CarbonCure a foothold into one of the largest world markets. The city is typically less subject to the poisonous smog that regularly covers inland cities like Beijing, but has recently found itself increasingly troubled by crippling levels of air pollution.

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