Carbon Capture

Carbon capture, a child sector within Superscout's Climate & Sustainability category, encompasses the technologies that remove CO2 from industrial emissions (point-source capture) or directly from the atmosphere (direct air capture), as well as the storage, utilization, and monitoring infrastructure that completes the carbon management value chain. With 8 funders actively investing in carbon capture startups tracked in Superscout's database, the sector is experiencing rapid growth driven by corporate net-zero commitments, expanding carbon pricing regimes, and government incentives including the 45Q tax credit in the US, which provides up to $180 per ton for direct air capture.

The carbon capture investment thesis is powered by the growing scientific and political consensus that emissions reduction alone cannot achieve climate targets, and that gigatons of CO2 must be actively removed from the atmosphere. The voluntary carbon removal market is scaling rapidly, with advance purchase agreements from companies like Microsoft, Stripe, Google, and Frontier collectively committing billions to carbon removal purchases. Simultaneously, compliance carbon markets in the EU and emerging markets are creating mandatory demand for verified emissions reduction.

For carbon capture founders, the 2025-2026 funding environment rewards companies that have demonstrated capture technology at pilot scale, secured offtake agreements for carbon credits or utilization products, and can articulate a credible path to sub-$100-per-ton capture costs.