Berkeley startup Capture6 has raised $6.255 million in debt and "safenotes" — debt that can later convert into equity — to develop its novel approach to capturing and sequestering carbon, according to co-founder Luke Shors.
The company's technology uses a strong base to turn CO2 in the atmosphere into minerals. It differentiates itself from other carbon capture projects in its ability to use its technology in combination with other industrial processes such as water desalination plants, as opposed to standalone carbon capture plants like those used by Climeworks in Iceland.
"One of our differentiators is we can use a salty water input, like seawater, geothermal, brine or even the waste stream from a desalinization facility," Shors said. "We can strip out the salt for use in our process, and then we can return additional freshwater."
The company plans to break ground on a project in Southern California sometime this year, and it has projects in development in New Zealand and the Middle East.
Like many carbon capture companies, Capture6 is attempting to bring down the price of CO2 removal to $100 per ton, a price that is expected to incentivize rapid scaling. Shors says its approach of partnering with existing industrial partners and helping them reduce their carbon output will help them reduce costs, and not solely rely on pre-purchase agreements from companies buying high-value carbon offsets.
"The pre-purchase agreement is really important, but it's not the only thing that can drive the success of these projects," Shors said. "In some cases, the management of desalinization brine can be a big environmental headache. So, in some cases, our ability to manage that desalinization brine by using a salt in carbon capture actually can be more valuable to a community than carbon capture itself."
Capture6 was founded in 2021 and has 15 employees spread across the Bay Area.
