Sirona Technologies, co-founded by a former Tesla engineer, raises a €6 million seed round to tackle the ambitious goal of removing CO2 from the air at massive scale. The round was co-led by LocalGlobe and XAnge. The investor lineup includes: Look Up Ventures, Satgana, VOYAGERS Climate-Tech Fund, Syndicate One and Renaud Visage. This infusion of capital will give Sirona Technologies the fuel to scale up its Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology and deploy its first pilot plant in Kenya.
Reversing climate change using Direct Air Capture (DAC) has gone from being 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.
“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.”
Now that the technology has been proven and its key role is understood, the focus is on how to reach this massive scale: fast product iterations to reduce costs faster and to scale more quickly. Those are guiding principles learned at Tesla that now drive Sirona Technologies. In their first year alone, Sirona Technologies built three generations of prototypes to capture 1 ton of CO2 per year. And today, they are building the next generation capable of capturing 20 times that amount by July. Each iteration comes with better performance, reduced costs and increased scale.
Sirona Technologies, in partnership with local stakeholders, will deploy their machines to build their first capture 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. 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.
“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.”
