Dioxycle Raises $17M To Turn CO_₂ Emissions Into Sustainable Chemicals

Start-up attracts funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital and Gigascale Capital

Dioxycle, a French-American start-up that transforms CO₂ emissions into high-value, sustainable chemicals, has announced today the successful closure of its Series A funding round of 17 million dollars. The raise was co-led by renowned climate tech investors Lowercarbon Capital and Breakthrough Energy Ventures Europe (BEV-E), with participation from Gigascale Capital. This raise propels Dioxycle into an exciting new phase of development towards a first-of-its-kind industrial-emission-busting demonstrator.

Launched in January 2021, Dioxycle is developing a world-first technology to produce sustainable ethylene from recycled carbon emissions at equal or lower costs to fossil equivalents. Effectively, a ‘green discount’, that provides an immediate and built-in competitive advantage, as opposed to the ‘green premium’ that usually hampers the adoption of sustainable products. With a market size of some $180B, ethylene is the world’s most consumed organic chemical, used in the production of textiles, plastics, furniture, and construction materials but has a hefty carbon footprint. By removing fossil fuels from the production of ethylene, Dioxycle has the potential to slash CO₂ emissions by 800 million tons every year, representing over 2% of the global total.

This is made possible thanks to Dioxycle’s breakthrough low-temperature electrolyzer that generates high-value chemicals from just carbon emissions, water, and renewable electricity. This proprietary electrolyzer relies on a unique integrated approach that combines cost-effective catalytic technologies, proprietary high-efficiency stack design, and advanced process integration schemes. This approach positions Dioxycle to provide the most energy-efficient and cost-efficient means of producing sustainable ethylene and other key commodity chemicals with system design tailored to scale.

“Given how much our society runs on carbon, CO₂ emissions could be considered an incredible resource, but only with a highly efficient CO₂-conversion technology to take advantage of them. To this end, we continually asked ourselves how we can push this device to the maximum energy efficiency possible. Now, two and a half years later, we are ready to build an electrolyzer with the carbon-converting capabilities of about 20,000 trees, focused on the production of sustainable ethylene,” co-founder and CTO David Wakerley explains.

By developing the electrolyzer to make a green discount possible, Dioxycle combines decarbonization with profitability and aims to trigger fast adoption even in regions with limited carbon reduction incentives. Having scaled from lab trials to first electrolyser stacks in 2022, the Series A funding will now enable the company to move to first on-site demonstrators and an industrial prototype before preliminary commercialisation within the next five years.

“Our vision is to become the INTEL Inside of the CCUS industry (Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage), the trusted technology provider empowering chemical manufacturers to reinvent chemical processes based on emission recycling rather than fossil fuel extraction. To reach our climate goals, we must disrupt the processes of incumbents instead of re-building the industry from the ground up. Leveraging existing industrial assets will allow us to scale sustainable technologies at the required speed,” co-founder and CEO, Sarah Lamaison shares.

To achieve such ambitious goals, Dioxycle is seeking to expand its team, currently composed mostly of PhDs from world-leading institutions, in both Europe and the US. The company will focus on hiring profiles with extensive industrial experience in electrolyzer scale-up and process integration towards the first on-site demonstration of Dioxycle’s technology. To find out more and apply to join the growing Dioxycle team, visit https://dioxycle.com/career/.

Investor Quotes:

• “Global ethylene supply chains face two critical problems: dependence on volatile fossil fuels and highly centralized production. Dioxycle is solving both of those problems at the same time. With a modular process powered by just water, electricity and waste CO₂, Dioxycle is uniquely positioned to undercut legacy ethylene production, decentralize supply chains, and capture a $200B market,” noted Clea Kolster, PhD, Partner and Head of Science – Lowercarbon Capital.
• “Dioxycle is the most exciting electrolysis-based carbon capture and utilization company we have come across. The team has developed a low-temp electrolyzer to convert carbon emissions into commodity chemicals with impressive economics unlocking the potential to disrupt the $5T+ commodity chemical & fuel industry,” said Carmichael Roberts of Breakthrough Energy Ventures. “And most importantly, we see this low-cost CCU solution as a pathway to mitigate up to four gigatons of CO₂-equivalent emissions in the manufacturing space, where efforts are essential to combat climate change.”
• “Dioxycle combines a world-class technical team with a breakthrough technology to convert carbon emissions into useful products at lower cost than existing high-carbon alternatives,” said Mike Schroepfer of Gigascale Capital. “They stand to disrupt a $200B market with a simple pitch: our product is cheaper and also can mitigate gigatons of emissions.”