Belgium climatetech startup Sirona Technologies has raised €6 million in seed funding. The round was co-led by LocalGlobe (invested in CuspAI and Qogita) and XAnge. Other investors that contributed to this round include Look Up Ventures, Satgana, VOYAGERS Climate-Tech Fund, Syndicate One and Renaud Visage.
Pilot plant in Kenya
This infusion of capital will enable the company to scale up its Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology and deploy its first pilot plant in Kenya. The pilot plant is set to be operational by the end of the year, with a full-scale commercial plant expected by early 2026, and a target to incrementally scale to 1 million tons of CO2 captured per year by 2030.
Why Kenya?
Kenya has embraced this innovative technology, positioning itself as a climate leader in Africa. The country has already heavily invested in clean energy, achieving a 93% renewable energy grid. However, with only 2GW of peak demand compared to 3GW of capacity, there is currently excess supply.
The introduction of DAC facilities will be crucial to increase energy demand, helping to reduce electricity costs for Kenyans, and benefiting local communities through sustainable development.
Challenge that Sirona Technologies addresses
Reversing climate change using DAC has gone from being a fringe idea that would never work to being a key part of any climate mitigation plan, and the first commercial plants are now operational. On top of phasing out fossil fuels to drastically reduce emissions, the role of DAC is to help remove 1 trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. This is necessary to offset emissions that are too hard to avoid, and to clean up historical emissions.
It uses machines that filter massive amounts of atmospheric air to remove the CO2, which is then injected and permanently stored in geological formations, where it turns into rock over two years. Among the multiple ways to remove CO2 from the air, DAC is considered the highest standard because it is highly scalable, permanent and verifiable.
What does the company do?
Founded in 2023 and led by a former Tesla engineer – Thor Gutierrez alongside Gauthier Limpens, Sirona Technologies is a climate tech startup focusing on DAC technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The company builds DAC machines that remove CO2 from the air and deploy them in large arrays (similar to solar farms) at massive scale, to complement emissions reductions in our fight against climate change.
Now that the technology has been proven, the company focuses on reaching this massive scale. It plans for fast product iterations to reduce costs faster and to scale more quickly.
In one year, Sirona Technologies built three generations of prototypes to capture 1 ton of CO2 per year. As of now, it is building the next generation prototype capable of capturing 20 times that amount by July. Each iteration comes with better performance, reduced costs and increased scale.
“Direct Air Capture is an indispensable tool in our fight against climate change,” stated Gauthier Limpens, co-founder and CTO of Sirona Technologies. “Our progress so far has been phenomenal, and with the new funding, we are poised to take our technology to the next level. The pilot plant in Kenya will be a crucial step towards our goal of capturing 1 million tons of CO2 annually by 2030. The overall potential here is massive, and we are very excited to get started now while being able to benefit local communities.”
“The amount of CO2 we need to remove from the atmosphere is so big, it’s hard to comprehend,” said Thoralf Gutierrez, CEO and co-founder of Sirona Technologies. “If we were to plant trees, we would have to cover an area the size of Asia. With Direct Air Capture, we need to run our machines on a 150km x 150km array of solar panels, which is about 10% of the clean energy that will be built by 2050. Both will play a role, but it’s clear that forests won’t be enough.”
What do we think about Sirona Technologies?
Being at the forefront of climate tech innovation with its scalable DAC technology aimed at removing CO2 from the atmosphere and guidance from the former Tesla engineer, the company is positioned to make significant strides in combating climate change. Its approach alongside advanced technology with sustainable development will help combat climate challenges we face.