On EQT Ventures investment in ViridiCO2, valorising waste CO2
The toughest challenges we face today are breeding new types of founders. These founders are embarking on journeys to develop, innovate and create radical solutions to the world’s biggest problems.
We are in an era where founders must seek to disrupt and transform entire sectors and rethink age-old systems to create lasting change.
One of our most urgent calls to action globally is to address the climate crisis. To mitigate the effects of climate change, we must lower our emissions. This means heavy industry must adapt and rethink how they can grow, innovate and maintain production within the planetary constraints we face.
Perceived as one of the dirtiest sectors globally, the chemicals industry is a high-polluting, 5 trillion-dollar industry that currently has one feedstock — fossil fuel-based petrochemicals.
To keep global warming in line with the goal of the Paris Agreement to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. But the industry faces great challenges as, whilst emissions reduction is key, plastics and other everyday items are still needed and used by millions every day.
Dr Daniel Stewart is a PhD accredited chemist with the deep technical knowledge and out-of-the-box thinking needed to tackle these hugely complex and nuanced problems.
On visiting my alma mater, the University of Southampton, for an accelerator event, I met Dan, who during his PhD, created and spun-out ViridiCO2, a company with radical technology which holds the key to transforming the chemical sector.
Daniel and his team founded the game-changing company, which through its innovative processes converts waste carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, into high-value chemical products. These carbon-negative products would be used in everyday essentials such as cosmetics, detergents and shampoos.
The tech Daniel’s team is building will enable the chemicals industry to cut the use of fossil-fuel-based petrochemical feedstocks — with a path to removing this feedstock completely — and reduce CO2 emissions which is crucial to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, to save our planet from a climate catastrophe.
The solution ViridiCO2 provides is a true win-win for business and the world, as it ultimately leads to cheaper manufacturing costs (up to 30%), higher productivity and a far greener manufacturing process that actively reduces CO2 emissions from an industry that contributes approximately 16% of global annual emissions.
EQT Ventures is excited about ViridiCO2’s potential, and I look forward to supporting Dan and his team to accelerate the development and commercialisation of the tech and revolutionise the way the world utilises waste CO2.
We look to back generation defining companies and we are particularly excited about ViridiCO2, which has the potential to accelerate the energy transition of a whole industry. And it seems Forbes agree!
