Carbon Reform has pulled in investment from the Cisco Foundation, is bringing its products to market and recently emerged victorious in a region-wide pitch competition.
After pilot periods on its carbon capture devices, the Philadelphia startup founded by two Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees is looking to have all of its products in the market by the end of the first quarter of 2025. It has received buy-in of late in the form of an investment of an undisclosed size from the Cisco Foundation, the social benefit investment arm of the Silicon Valley technology giant. That's part of an ongoing "seed-plus" fundraising round for Carbon Reform.
The five-year-old company also in active talks with the City of Philadelphia to become a customer and has scouted out locations to use its carbon capture devices.
Those boxes are being checked as Carbon Reform won the Philadelphia Regional Startup World Cup Pitch Competition, beating out 10 other local startups in an event hosted last week by the Philadelphia Department of Commerce at Temple University. Carbon Reform won $20,000 and now advances to one of the largest pitch competitions in the world, where it will have a chance in San Francisco to take home a $1 million first place prize.
Founded in 2020 by University of Delaware alums Jo Norris and Nick Martin, the company has a mission to "democratize access to carbon capture." Its Carbon Capsule and Carbon Canister devices efficiently capture and permanently store carbon from buildings, which is typically an energy intensive process that involves transporting and storing the captured carbon deep underground.
After an extended time researching, developing and running pilots of its carbon capture devices, Carbon Reform is now bringing them to market. That includes its retrofit Carbon Capsule device for large buildings, its freestanding plug-and-play Carbon Canister device and its IO IAQ sensor that provides insight into air quality.
The smaller unit, the Carbon Canister, services up to 1,500 square feet and is currently in the market, including with Philadelphia-based personal care company Inolex. The larger Carbon Capsule device, its flagship product, services up to 20,000 square feet and is nearing the end of its year-long-plus pilot stage. It was most recently being piloted by Exelon-owned Baltimore Gas and Electric. The IO IAQ sensor also recently launched.
Prices on the products can vary based on the energy savings the customer achieves. For example, the startup wants the energy savings for a company to pay for the subscription of the cost of the product over the course of the year. Carbon Reform says the products can reduce energy costs by up to 20% a year on a given building.
The products are modular, so one building could need to deploy five to 10 capsules. Martin said that means three or four major clients that use multiple products could bring it to its goal for 2025 of hitting $3 million in annual recurring revenue.
Martin declined to disclose the total goal for the "seed-plus" fundraising round. He said it will serve to "give us enough runway to hit at least $3 million in [annual recurring revenue] so that we can raise a pretty formidable series A."
Carbon Reform has raised $5 million to date.
The capital will also go toward securing intellectual property patents and hiring. The company plans to increase its total headcount from 12 to 18, mostly adding senior level positions that often means relocating certain new hires to the Philadelphia area, according to Martin.
Over the next year, Martin said the startup will also be working on new iterations of its carbon capture devices. That includes making them more modular and developing options that can service between the 1,500 square feet and 20,000 square feet currently offered.
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