What the business is
NeoCarbon develops retrofit direct air capture kits for industrial cooling towers, planning to license the tech to tower manufacturers.
Starting capital
€1.25M pre-seed (2022)
How it started
Two scientist founders quit their jobs and met at an Antler co-founder matching event in Berlin, hunting for a climate idea they could execute fast. Founding NeoCarbon in January 2022, they took US startup Noya Labs' insight — retrofitting DAC into existing structures — and applied it to European industrial cooling towers rather than commercial buildings.
What happened
A low-budget proof of concept in February 2022 led to an MVP being finalised in September 2022, with a commercial pilot targeted for Q1 2023. Captured CO2 would first be reused on site by facilities such as vertical farms and carbonated drinks makers, with letters of intent for carbon storage partnerships under discussion for early 2024. NeoCarbon was also developing an MOU with at least one cooling-tower manufacturer for co-development, aiming for a licensing model in which manufacturers install and maintain the kits under exclusive geographic licences.
What has to be true
Cooling towers already push the volume of air DAC needs; the startup supplies only the capture chemistry, not the plant.
Siting next to CO2 buyers turns capture into a product with a paying customer, not a cost centre.
Licensing to tower manufacturers outsources distribution and maintenance to incumbents who already own the customer relationships.
What can be applied
The cheapest infrastructure is the kind that already exists: selling into a machine's existing airflow, heat and maintenance contracts beats building new plants.
Aftermath
As of September 14, 2022, NeoCarbon was finalising its MVP, targeting a commercial-facility pilot by end of Q1 2023, developing an MOU with at least one tower manufacturer, and discussing storage partnership LOIs for early 2024.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE