What the business is
CUR8 is a London startup building a market-maker platform that sources and sells carbon removal credits to companies.
The bet
Companies will pay one flat price for a curated, vetted portfolio of high-durability removals, and that broker role can grow into a market maker.
How it started
Co-founder Marta Krupinska, a fintech entrepreneur who co-founded Azimo and led Google for Startups in the UK, learned about carbon removals in December 2020. In 2021 she was introduced to climate scientist Dr Gabrielle Walker, who founded Rethinking Removals; with Mark Stevenson they founded CUR8 in 2022.
What happened
CUR8 prices its credits at £150, pegged to $185, a figure calculated as the social cost of carbon, and says 40% of its portfolio will sit in the Global South. It says it does supplier due diligence in-house across 100+ data points and starts as a broker with aims to become a market maker. Its first portfolio used 1PointFive for direct air capture, UNDO for enhanced rock weathering and Loam Bio for durable soil carbon.
What has to be true
Offsetting had gained a poor reputation, so buyers needed a more credible way to pay for removal
Direct air capture sits at technology readiness level 6 and is too costly for most buyers on its own, but a portfolio spreads cost
No single removal method can reach the scale the IPCC expects, so a diversified portfolio reduces risk
Locating 40% of supply in the Global South is meant to direct funds where finance is scarce
What can be applied
In a market with hard-to-compare, expensive supply, a curated bundle at one published price can be the product before any single technology is mature.
Aftermath
As of June 2023 CUR8 was an early-stage broker working toward a market-maker role. Its volume and revenue were not disclosed, and the article is based on interviews with the founders.
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