Estonian cleantech company UP Catalyst, a pioneer in producing sustainable carbon materials directly from CO2 emissions, has successfully closed a €2.36 million seed extension round.

The funding round saw equal participation from Warsaw Equity Group, a leading private investment firm in Central and Eastern Europe, and Estonia’s state fund SmartCap, who also contributed to the previous seed round.

This follows the initial seed round raised last December which amounted to €4 million, bringing the total seed funding to €6.36 million. Existing investors, including Extantia, Sunly, Little Green Fund, Scottish Baltic Invest, and UniTartu Ventures, continue to support UP Catalyst’s mission to scale its production capabilities.

The funding will accelerate the construction of its first-of-a-kind industrial production unit, positioning UP Catalyst as the largest provider of CO2-grown carbon materials globally.

UP Catalyst´s technology is a game changer

“By 2030, the EU will require 3 million tons of carbon materials for electric vehicle batteries. Despite having the potential to utilise 11 million tons of CO₂ through existing technology, the EU currently invests in underground storage and imports fossil-based materials from China,” said Dr Gary Urb, CEO of UP Catalyst. “The technology is ready—we just need the investment to scale up as a crucial step toward utilising at least 200 thousand tons of CO2 annually by 2030.”

UP Catalyst’s production process has a carbon footprint of just 0.07 ton of CO2-eq per ton of graphite—20 times lower than conventional graphite production—and 0.7 ton of CO2-eq per ton of carbon nanotubes, an impressive 242 times lower than the emissions from the traditional Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) method.

“Supporting UP Catalyst aligns perfectly with Warsaw Equity Group’s mission to invest in ground-breaking technologies that combat climate change. Turning industrial CO2 emissions into critical carbon-based raw materials that we are severely lacking in Europe is a game changer,” stated Arvin Khanchandani, Investment Manager at Warsaw Equity Group.

UP Catalyst has moved into a new facility in Tallinn

With the help of this investment, UP Catalyst plans to build an industrial pilot reactor that can process 100 tonnes of CO2 and produce 27 tonnes of carbon materials. The technology built on molten salt electrolysis not only aims to achieve price parity with traditional carbon sources but also significantly reduces the carbon footprint associated with raw material production.

UP Catalyst has also started to move into a new facility hosting the industrial production unit activities, located right next to the Tallinn waste incineration plant. This enables future direct access to hard-to-abate CO2 emissions.

Gary Urb Ph.D. and Kätlin Kaare Ph.D. founded UP Catalyst in 2019 in Tallinn, Estonia. The startup specialises in making graphite from carbon dioxide. The company’s graphite is used in batteries, carbon nanotubes, and hydrogen fuel cells. The idea came from the researchers’ desire to give a green purpose to an unwanted waste product. 

The new plant will boast a production capacity ten times larger than the current setup, marking a significant milestone towards the construction of a full-scale industrial reactor unit. This innovative approach not only alleviates the EU’s dependence on foreign fossil fuel imports but also offers industrial partners a pathway to utilise their CO2 emissions, potentially reducing the need for purchasing allowances from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) or mitigating carbon tax burdens.

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