A quiet shift is underway in climate tech, and it treats carbon dioxide not just as waste, but as a resource. Vienna-based startup sequestra is pushing that idea forward with fresh backing, securing €3 million in seed funding to bring its CO2 mineralisation technology closer to industrial reality.
The round was led by VSE Beteiligungs-GmbH, supported by the Dr. Rudolf Fries Familien-Privatstiftung. Combined with grants from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency and Austria Wirtschaftsservice, the company now has around €5 million to scale its operations.
This capital will fund the expansion of its analytical lab and accelerate the development of industrial systems designed to permanently lock carbon away. It will be used in the materials we already use.
With its new funding, Sequestra is preparing to roll out its first modular, container-sized mineralisation unit by the end of 2027.
A natural process accelerated
At the core of sequestra’s approach is mineralisation, a process inspired by nature, where CO2 reacts with minerals to form stable, rock-like carbonates. In nature, this transformation can take thousands of years. sequestra compresses that timeline into hours.
The result is permanent carbon storage. Each ton of processed material can bind up to 300 kg of CO2, turning emissions into a stable, useful form.
But the real advantage lies in what happens next. The resulting carbonates can be reused in construction materials, giving industrial waste a second life. Instead of sending residues to landfill, industries can convert them into inputs for new products.
This dual outcome, carbon removal and material reuse, positions mineralisation as both a climate solution and an industrial efficiency play.
Idea of engineers with lab experience
Founded in 2024 by three engineers with complementary backgrounds across process engineering, industrial scale-up, and data-driven modelling. The company now operates with a 15-person interdisciplinary team across Vienna and Upper Austria, combining lab research with pilot-scale testing.
Lukas Höber holds a PhD in metallurgical and recycling engineering and previously worked as a researcher and sustainability consultant, focusing on industrial decarbonisation.
Gero Schwarz has more than five years of experience in large-scale metallurgical plant engineering, including commissioning of industrial facilities and innovation development.
Roberto Lerche combines a background in recycling engineering with experience in data modelling and consulting, focusing on building data-driven systems and scalable business models.
Idea behind this startup
The idea emerged from a combination of technical insight and market need. During their academic and professional work, the founders identified a large untapped potential in industrial mineral residues as a resource for carbon utilisation.
At the same time, heavy industry faces increasing pressure to reduce emissions and manage waste streams. sequestra was founded to connect these two challenges and turn CO2 emissions and industrial residues into a scalable, economically viable solution.
From lab data to industrial deployment
A key part of its progress is an integrated laboratory built to analyse mineral residues and their CO2 uptake potential. This allows industrial partners to test whether their waste streams, from metallurgy, energy production, or construction, can be transformed into valuable materials.
So far, sequestra has completed more than 250 carbonation trials across a wide range of industrial inputs. Each test adds to a growing dataset that maps how different materials behave under specific conditions.
That data feeds directly into process design. Instead of relying on slow, linear development, the company uses insights from its trials to rapidly refine and optimise its systems. The result is a shorter path from experimentation to industrial application.
What about diversity statistics?
As revealed by the company to TFN, “sequestra’s team is both international and gender-diverse, with employees from seven countries across and beyond Europe. We currently have 40% female representation across our employed FTEs (30% including the founders), which is above the European average for comparable industrial sectors.”
What makes it’s technology different from others?
On the technology front, sequestra stated, “Our technology accelerates the natural process of mineralisation, converting CO2 into stable carbonates within hours instead of tens of thousands of years. What differentiates sequestra is the combination of three elements: The flexibility to process a broad variety of industrial residues, a strongly data-driven process development approach base on extensive, in-house experimental data, and modular, containerised systems that can be deployed directly at industrial sites. This allows us to move faster from initial material screenings to industrial application than traditional approaches.”
Plans ahead
Detailing its plans for the next five years, “Over the next few years, our focus is on scaling and industrial deployment. Key milestones include scaling our process to industrial-scale throughput, expanding our data capabilities, deploying our first modular container system, and strengthening partnerships with industrial players across key sectors. Our goal is to establish mineralisation as a practical and scalable solution within industrial value chains.”
“This fresh capital enables us to enter the next stage of sequestra’s technology development, in which we leverage our analytical data assets to scale up our industrial process to 1 ton per hour and deploy our containerised carbonation systems in industrial projects,” says Roberto Lerche, Co-Founder and Co-CEO.
