Terra CO2, a startup based in Golden that created a patented process for making a low-carbon alternative to cement, raised $46 million in Series A financing to build its third pilot plant and and accelerate its timeline to production.
The round was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a fund led by Bill Gates that invests in technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Also participating were Oakland-based Creative Ventures and Rio Tinto, a London-based metals and mining corporation.
This marks the second investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funded Terra CO2 during its seed round. It brings the total amount raised by the startup to $61 million.
"We have just been moving at light-speed with our technology, and we have world-class capital backing by Breakthrough Energy Ventures," said Bill Yearsley, president and CEO of Terra CO2. "I know last year, we were one of the fastest deals they invested in. From our first handshake to them writing a check was three and a half weeks."
Cement production is the source of an estimated 8% of the world's carbon emissions. During the process, limestone is turned into lime by baking it at high temperatures in kilns. Limestone, which stores carbon, releases it when it's broken down. More CO2 is released from the fossil fuels used to heat the kilns.
Terra CO2 claims that its process produces 70% lower carbon emissions than traditional cement production. Instead of limestone, Terra CO2 uses silicate rocks, such as granite, sand and gravel, which are easier to source, Yearsley said.
"Silicate rocks have very little, if any, embodied CO2, so that's the biggest part of the solution," he said. "And we have a proprietary reactor that basically melts the rock into a liquid for a couple of milliseconds, and then we turn it back into a solid."
Terra CO2 calls the end material Opus, which Yearsley says works "equal to or better than" existing materials and could be scaled to meet the massive demand for cement.
The startup is different from other "green cement" options because Terra CO2 can use readily available granite quarries or sand and gravel pits to source its materials, Yearsley said. Other efforts to make a low-carbon cement alternative use materials that are more difficult to source and scale, such as recycled concrete aggregates, aluminum can fibers, or fly ash, which is a waste product from coal power plants.
Yearsley first saw Terra CO2's process a few years ago when he visited D.J. Lake, the founder and vice president of research and development for the startup. Lake developed the process in Vancouver using an angel investment from a mining company in the Yukon.
Yearsley, who has about 40 years of experience in the construction materials sector in Colorado, joined Lake as an advisor and moved Terra CO2 to Golden.
"I listened to the explanation of what he was doing, and I thought it was brilliant," Yearlsey said. "It was really eye-opening."
The startup has pilot plants in northern Colorado and Vancouver, and some of the funding from its Series A round will go toward establishing its first commercial plant, the location of which hasn't been decided. The startup intends the facility to have the capability of producing 250,000 tons of material annually.
Terra CO2 expects to break ground on the commercial plant in 2023 and have the material available for commercial use in 2024 or 2025.
