Dioxycle, a French American start-up that transforms CO₂ emissions into high-value, sustainable chemicals, announced the successful closure of its Series A funding round of $17 MM. 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 $180 B, 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 MMtpy, 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,” said co-founder and CTO, David Wakerley.

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 electrolyzer stacks in 2022, the Series A funding will now enable the company to move to first onsite demonstrators and an industrial prototype before preliminary commercialization within the next 5 yr. 

“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,” said co-founder and CEO, Sarah Lamaison.