Spiritus Raises $30 Million to Slash Cost of DAC Carbon Removal

Climate-tech startup Spiritus announced that it has raised $30 million in a Series A funding round, with proceeds aimed at enabling the company to advance its scalable, low-cost direct air capture (DAC) carbon removal technology.

DAC technology, listed by the IEA as a key carbon removal option in the transition to a net-zero energy system, extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere for use as a raw material or permanently removed when combined with storage. According to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change mitigation study, scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C include carbon dioxide removal methods scaling to billions of tons of removal annually over the coming decades, with DAC positioned to potentially account for a significant portion of the total.

While poised to significantly contribute to carbon removal, however, DAC faces cost barriers, with Spiritus citing a current average of $1,000 per ton of CO2.

Founded in 2022 by CEO Charles Cadieu and CTO Matt Lee, Spiritus has developed a solution to significantly slash the cost of DAC, with the company targeting a 90% reduction to $100 per ton. The company’s “Carbon Orchard” approach utilizes passive air contacting, without fans, absorbing CO2 from the ambient air through passive contacting, using a unique carbon capture sorbent, and a novel low-temperature desorption process. According to the company, the combination of a highly cost-effective sorbent material, low-energy consumption, and modular design enables a scalable, low-cost solution to allow for megaton-scale carbon removal.

Cadieu said:

“We’re seeing soaring demand for data centers and heavy industries, yet we can’t ignore the carbon that comes with it. Our DAC technology brings large-scale decarbonization within reach. This funding advances our vision of supporting America’s explosive growth while keeping emissions in check.”

The financing round was led by Aramco Ventures and joined by Khosla Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, and TDK Ventures. Spiritus said that the new capital will be used to advance projects including its 1,000 ton DAC New Mexico Pilot Facility, and its “Orchard One” project in Wyoming, designed to sequester 2 megatons of CO2 annually, making it one of the largest DAC and sequestration (DAC+S) facilities in the U.S. Spiritus is also partnering with Aramco to further develop the technology and scale deployments in the Saudi Arabia.

Bruce Niven, Executive Managing Director of Strategic Venturing at Aramco Ventures, said:

“Direct Air Capture has the potential to play an important role in decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors of the economy, but until now, it has been too expensive to be meaningful. Breakthrough approaches like Spiritus are needed. We are excited to partner with Spiritus and bring this important technology to market.”