CCUS Funding: A Quarter-by-Quarter Analysis

All funding deals in the CCUS market over the last years

Below is the table listing all the deals. You can find our methodology at the end of this page.

If you want a deeper understanding of the market and its current dynamics, get our report covering the Carbon Capture Market.

Is CCUS funding actually recovering now?

Yes, CCUS funding is recovering right now, although the recovery is showing up much more in the size of rounds than in the number of companies getting funded.

Q2 2026 produced six financings worth $67.2 million in total, up from the same six deals and $24.4 million in Q1. The median round climbed from $3.18 million to $11.38 million. Investors basically wrote much bigger checks without funding more companies.

The contrast with late 2025 is even clearer. Q4 had just two deals worth $11.9 million. Q1 then brought deal activity back, mostly through small Seed rounds, before Q2 pushed average check sizes much higher.

The latest quarter also looks cleaner than the huge funding totals seen in 2025. There was no $50 million-plus deal in Q2 2026. Instead, D-CRBN raised $20.4 million, CREW Carbon $19 million in equity and Carbonology about $18.45 million. Three companies contributed to the jump rather than one enormous transaction doing all the work.

For now, this looks like a real recovery in funding quality and round size. A broader boom would require the number of funded companies to start rising as well.

Quarter	Deals	Known capital	Capital excluding >$50M	Median round
Q2 2025	5	$570.4M	$70.4M	$32.5M
Q3 2025	8	$300.2M	$57.0M	$9.89M
Q4 2025	2	$11.89M	$11.89M	$5.95M
Q1 2026	6	$24.41M	$24.41M	$3.18M
Q2 2026	6	$67.23M	$67.23M	$11.38M
Five-quarter total	27	$974.13M	$230.93M	-

Was Q2 2025 really a $570 million CCUS funding quarter?

The $570 million CCUS funding figure for Q2 2025 is technically correct under announced commitments, yet it gives a very exaggerated picture of how much money was spreading across the market.

One transaction explains almost everything. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners committed up to $500 million to the BKV dCarbon joint venture, representing 87.7% of the quarter's known capital.

The structure of the deal is crucial. BKV's SEC filing says that the investor commitment could be contributed over five years as capital was called by the joint venture. It was therefore very different from a startup receiving $500 million of cash at closing.

Strip out deals above $50 million and Q2 falls from $570.4 million to $70.4 million. The other visible financings then give us a more realistic picture of the quarter: Aircapture at $50 million, RepAir Carbon at $15 million and novoMOF at $5.4 million, plus Skytree's undisclosed Series A.

So whenever we compare Q2 2025 with later quarters, the $570 million headline needs to be handled carefully. The broad private funding market underneath it was closer to tens of millions than hundreds of millions.

Why did CCUS deal count jump in Q3 2025 while funding went down?

Q3 2025 brought more CCUS deals, but investors were generally writing smaller checks.

Deal count increased from five to eight, a 60% jump. Total capital still fell from $570.4 million to $300.2 million, while the median round dropped sharply from $32.5 million to $9.89 million.

Even the $300 million total needs unpacking. Climeworks raised $162 million and Peak Cluster about $81.2 million. Those two transactions alone accounted for roughly 81% of the quarter's capital.

The rest of the quarter looked very different. OXCCU raised $28 million, Equatic $11.6 million, Enadyne around $8.17 million, Brineworks roughly $5.87 million, DACLab $3 million and Carbon CryoCapture about $404,000.

Q3 had more activity across the market than Q2, while the typical deal became much smaller. That is easy to miss if we only compare total dollars.

Did CCUS funding genuinely freeze in Q4 2025?

Yes, Q4 2025 was the clearest CCUS funding freeze in the period we studied.

Deal count collapsed from eight to two. Capital fell from $300.2 million to $11.9 million, a 96% drop. Even after removing Q3's deals above $50 million, underlying capital still fell about 79%.

Only Carbonova and LimeNet appear in the quarter, at $3.66 million and $8.23 million respectively. Both were follow-on financings. We found no first financing and no later-stage transaction.

The interesting part is how broad the deterioration was. Q3 had included tiny Seed rounds, Series A deals, OXCCU's $28 million Series B and Climeworks' large later-stage raise. Three months later, virtually all of that depth had disappeared.

Q4 is where the market really hit the floor.

What actually came back in CCUS funding in Q1 2026?

Q1 2026 brought CCUS deal activity back quickly, although the money came back in small early-stage checks.

Six companies raised capital, compared with only two in Q4. Total funding recovered to $24.4 million. Yet the median round fell again, from $5.95 million to $3.18 million.

Four of the six transactions were below $5 million. Co-Reactive's $7.78 million Seed and Rubi Laboratories' $7.5 million financing were the largest rounds, followed by Sequestra at $3.45 million, pHathom at roughly $2.9 million, Intrinsic Foundries at $1.4 million and Forge Minerals at $1.38 million.

Five of those six deals were Seed rounds where the stage was known. Q1 looks more like the reopening of the funding pipeline after a terrible Q4 than the start of a large-check funding cycle.

One category also dominated: five of the six companies were working on CO₂ utilization. That concentration becomes important when we look at which parts of CCUS have actually kept attracting investors.

Why does Q2 2026 look healthier than the big CCUS funding quarters of 2025?

Q2 2026 currently looks like the healthiest CCUS funding quarter in this series because the improvement came from several meaningful rounds rather than one huge outlier.

Capital rose 175% from Q1 while deal count stayed flat at six. The median round increased 3.6 times to $11.38 million.

D-CRBN closed a $20.4 million Series A to move its plasma CO₂ conversion technology from industrial pilot validation toward commercial deployment. CREW Carbon raised $19 million of equity as part of a broader $25 million package and said it would use the money to deploy its system at more wastewater utilities. Carbonology added another roughly $18.45 million Series A while moving rapidly from a 100-ton test line toward a 1,000-ton DAC-to-e-SAF pilot.

Those are three different companies, technologies and geographies. None individually dominates the quarter.

The distribution of funding has changed too. In Q1, four of six deals were below $5 million. By Q2, most of the capital was sitting around the $18 million to $20 million range. A middle layer of CCUS financing has reappeared after being largely absent during the previous two quarters.

The improvement still needs to persist beyond one quarter before we call it a sustained acceleration. The mix itself, though, is clearly better than the outlier-heavy peaks of 2025.

Quarter	<$5M	$5M–<$20M	$20M–<$50M	$50M–<$100M	$100M+
Q2 2025	0	2	0	1	1
Q3 2025	2	3	1	1	1
Q4 2025	1	1	0	0	0
Q1 2026	4	2	0	0	0
Q2 2026	3	2	1	0	0
Five-quarter total	10	10	2	2	2

Is CO₂ utilization the hottest part of CCUS funding right now?

CO₂ utilization has shown the most consistent funding activity across recent quarters, although investors are no longer putting nearly all their money into it.

Its share of deals rose from 25% in Q3 2025 to 50% in Q4 and then 83% in Q1 2026. It remained the largest category by deal count in Q2, with three of six financings.

The companies also cover several real industrial markets. OXCCU is converting waste carbon into sustainable aviation fuel. D-CRBN turns CO₂-rich industrial gases into carbon monoxide and syngas for fuels and chemicals. Rubi uses waste CO₂ to make cellulose and other materials. Co-Reactive and Sequestra are using mineralization to create construction inputs.

Some of those companies are now showing commercial evidence alongside the technology. Rubi announced more than $60 million of offtake term sheets with its $7.5 million financing. OXCCU's $28 million Series B brought in companies including IAG, Safran and ORLEN, all with a direct interest in aviation fuels.

The category did cool off slightly in Q2. Utilization still generated half the deals, while its share of capital dropped from about 88% in Q1 to 38%. DAC and storage came back with larger checks.

That looks more like normalization than a loss of momentum. Utilization currently has the strongest deal breadth, while the rest of CCUS is starting to contribute meaningful capital again.

Quarter / category	Deals	Capital	Median round
Q3 2025 – Direct Air Capture	3	$170.9M	$5.87M
Q3 2025 – Utilization	2	$36.2M	$18.1M
Q4 2025 – Utilization	1	$3.66M	$3.66M
Q1 2026 – Utilization	5	$21.51M	$3.45M
Q2 2026 – Utilization	3	$25.48M	$4.2M
Q2 2026 – Direct Air Capture	1	$18.45M	$18.45M
Q2 2026 – Storage	2	$23.3M	$11.65M

Is direct air capture funding drying up?

No, direct air capture funding currently looks erratic rather than dead.

DAC disappeared from our deal count in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, which initially looks worrying. It returned in Q2 with Carbonology's roughly $18.45 million Series A.

The same volatility was already obvious in 2025. Q2 included Aircapture's $50 million Series A and Skytree's undisclosed financing. Q3 then produced $170.9 million of known DAC capital, although $162 million came from Climeworks alone.

Climeworks also shows why DAC funding can jump around so much. The company said its 2025 raise took cumulative funding above $1 billion and would help scale its technology while bringing carbon-removal costs down. A financing of that size has little in common with a young DAC company raising its first institutional round.

Carbonology gives us a newer scale-up example. The company commissioned a 100-ton DAC-to-e-SAF test line and soon moved on to a 1,000-ton pilot project, with commissioning targeted after construction. It also announced a strategic cooperation with CATL.

DAC is still attracting meaningful capital, but a handful of expensive scale-up projects can completely reshape the quarterly numbers.

Are CCUS investors finally moving startups from Seed to Series A?

Yes, Q2 2026 shows the clearest move yet from small CCUS Seed rounds into Series A financing.

Half of the quarter's deals were Series A, and those rounds represented roughly 86% of known capital. D-CRBN, CREW Carbon and Carbonology all raised around $18 million to $20 million.

Only one quarter earlier, five of six deals were Seed where stage information was available. Q4 had been entirely Seed.

The jump also matches what the companies say they are doing with the money. D-CRBN is working toward industrial demonstrations and initial commercial deployments. CREW Carbon already has deployments underway and wants to reach more wastewater facilities. Carbonology has moved from smaller pilots into a 1,000-ton project.

We are seeing companies graduate from technical validation toward early commercial scale.

Growth-stage CCUS remains a different story. Q3 2025 was the only quarter in this period with substantial later-stage financing, mainly because of Climeworks and OXCCU. Nothing similar appeared in the following three quarters.

So the maturity shift is real, but it currently stops around Series A.

Are follow-on rounds taking over CCUS funding?

Yes, follow-on financing currently dominates CCUS: five of the six Q2 2026 deals and about 94% of the quarter's capital went to companies that had already raised before.

Reduciner's $4.2 million round was the only first financing we identified in Q2. The three largest rounds, D-CRBN, CREW Carbon and Carbonology, were all follow-ons.

The pattern goes beyond financing history. These companies increasingly have something tangible to finance. CREW reported more than $33 million in carbon-removal offtake agreements and multiple deployments. Inherit raised NOK 40 million around the time its first project entered operation, moving captured biogenic CO₂ from a Norwegian wastewater facility into permanent geological storage through Northern Lights. Rubi entered its latest round with more than $60 million of announced offtake term sheets.

First-financing share has moved around from quarter to quarter, so one Q2 reading should not be turned into a permanent rule. Still, the direction of the latest capital is clear: investors are putting much more money behind companies that have already survived an earlier technical or financing stage.

That also explains why the recovery has produced larger rounds without producing more deals. Money is moving further into the existing cohort.

Why are corporate investors showing up in bigger CCUS rounds?

Corporate investors are increasingly appearing where a CCUS startup already has an obvious industrial customer, infrastructure partner or route to deployment.

Carbonology brought in CATL and Sungrow while developing DAC and e-SAF infrastructure. Idemitsu Ventures invested in CREW Carbon, which is putting its technology into wastewater systems. Equinor Ventures returned in Inherit's latest financing as Inherit moved into operation through a storage chain connected to Northern Lights, which is owned by Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies.

The pattern was already visible earlier in our research. OXCCU attracted IAG, Safran, ORLEN, Aramco Ventures and Eni Next around sustainable aviation fuel. RepAir's $15 million round included Ormat Technologies and Repsol. Fassa Bortolo invested in LimeNet, whose technology is directly tied to lime production.

The quarterly ratio itself remains choppy: strategic investors backed 33% of deals in Q1 2026 and 50% in Q2. The more interesting change is where they are showing up.

These days, the strongest corporate involvement tends to sit around projects where the investor already understands the downstream industry and can potentially help with deployment.

Company	Quarter	Strategic investor examples	Industrial connection
RepAir Carbon	Q2 2025	Ormat, Repsol	Energy and carbon capture
Peak Cluster	Q3 2025	Tarmac, Breedon, Holcim, SigmaRoc	Cement and lime infrastructure
OXCCU	Q3 2025	IAG, Safran, ORLEN	Aviation and sustainable fuel
LimeNet	Q4 2025	Fassa Bortolo	Lime and construction materials
pHathom	Q1 2026	Carmeuse Ventures	Limestone and carbon storage
Inherit	Q2 2026	Equinor Ventures	CO₂ transport and geological storage
Carbonology	Q2 2026	CATL, Sungrow	Energy systems and e-SAF scale-up
CREW Carbon	Q2 2026	Idemitsu Ventures	Wastewater and carbon removal deployment

Are the same investment funds dominating CCUS funding?

No, the CCUS lead-investor market still looks very fragmented.

In Q3 2025, we counted nine unique leads or co-leads across six deals with disclosed leads. Q1 2026 produced eight names across six transactions, while Q2 had another eight across five deals where a lead was publicly identified.

The latest companies illustrate the spread. Astaia led D-CRBN. Burnt Island Ventures led CREW Carbon. Voima Ventures and Lifeline Ventures backed Reduciner. Carbonology's disclosed leads included YRD Investments, Gaorong Ventures and BioTrack Capital.

We do not find one venture firm repeatedly setting the pace across the market.

This is an interesting contrast with deal sizes. A few companies can absorb a large share of quarterly CCUS capital, while the investors behind those rounds remain surprisingly diverse.

Is CCUS funding becoming more global?

CCUS funding is more geographically balanced now than it was during the distorted regional peaks of 2025.

Q2 2026 split known capital roughly 43% to Europe, 30% to North America and 27% to Asia-Pacific. No region controlled even half of the quarter.

Compare that with Q2 2025, when North America represented 96% of capital largely because of BKV. Europe then jumped to 95% in Q3, with Climeworks and Peak Cluster explaining most of the concentration.

The latest quarter had meaningful rounds coming from several places at once. Belgium's D-CRBN supported Europe, U.S.-based CREW Carbon lifted North America, and China's Carbonology gave Asia-Pacific a sizeable share of the market.

We would give this trend less confidence than the shift toward follow-on rounds or larger Series A checks. Regional shares can move dramatically when the dataset contains only a handful of deals each quarter. For now, though, funding is clearly less geographically lopsided than it was around the big 2025 transactions.

Why did UK CCUS infrastructure suddenly attract so much money in Q3 2025?

The UK CCUS infrastructure spike in Q3 2025 came from a very specific mix of public support, industrial participation and one large Peak Cluster financing.

Peak Cluster raised £59.6 million of equity, roughly $81.2 million in our calculations. The UK's National Wealth Fund invested £28.6 million, alongside the project vehicle and cement and lime companies including Tarmac, Breedon, Holcim and SigmaRoc.

That deal arrived in a much broader government push. The UK had committed £21.7 billion over 25 years to support its first CCUS clusters, and the HyNet transport and storage network reached financial close in 2025. The National Wealth Fund described Peak Cluster as its first carbon-capture investment after the sector had been identified as a priority.

Peak Cluster itself is designed around a very concrete industrial problem: moving captured CO₂ from cement and lime plants toward permanent offshore storage.

The funding environment made sense for a project like this at that particular moment. It did not turn into a wave of transport-infrastructure financings afterward; we found no comparable transport deal in the following three quarters.

For now, Peak Cluster remains a one-quarter infrastructure event rather than the beginning of a broad private-investment rotation toward CO₂ pipelines.

What is the CCUS funding trend actually telling us?

CCUS funding has improved considerably from the Q4 2025 low, and the best part of the recovery is the composition of the latest rounds. Q1 brought the deal flow back. Q2 then brought larger checks, with three financings clustered around $18 million to $20 million and no giant transaction distorting the quarter.

The huge 2025 totals deserve much less weight. BKV turned Q2 into an apparent $570 million quarter, while Climeworks and Peak Cluster dominated Q3. Looking below those deals gives us a much clearer progression: reasonable activity in mid-2025, a severe freeze in Q4, a small-round restart in Q1 2026 and then a move toward larger Series A rounds in Q2.

CO₂ utilization has had the most consistent deal activity. Its dominance softened in Q2 as DAC and storage returned, which actually makes the overall market look healthier. Funding is currently spreading across several CCUS approaches instead of relying almost entirely on one category.

The maturity story is becoming clearer too. The market is moving from Seed toward Series A, while later-stage funding remains rare. At the same time, follow-ons now absorb most of the money. Investors appear more willing to fund another step for companies with pilots, deployments, industrial partners or offtake than to finance a large wave of brand-new CCUS startups.

Corporate capital fits the same picture. The strongest strategic participation appears around companies tied to a real industrial system: aviation fuel, wastewater, cement, lime, energy infrastructure or geological storage. That is more useful than simply tracking whether the strategic-investor percentage rises every quarter.

The remaining weakness is breadth. Six deals in Q2 is still only six deals, the same count as Q1. A durable CCUS funding acceleration would become much more convincing if larger checks started appearing alongside a growing number of funded companies. As of now, investors are paying more for progress rather than funding everything in sight.