What are the fundraising trends in the CCUS market?
In our CCUS market deck, you will find everything you need to understand the market
SUMMARY
We analyzed publicly disclosed equity rounds raised by pure-play CCUS companies between January 2024 and early July 2026, using a strict filter that includes carbon capture, direct air capture, CO2 conditioning, CO2 transport, CO2 utilization, and durable CO2 storage companies. The sample covers full-year 2024, full-year 2025, and year-to-date 2026 activity through early July.
Capital going into the CCUS market has fallen sharply. Full-year disclosed equity funding dropped from about $779M in 2024 to about $488M in 2025, and the fresher year-to-date comparison shows a further drop from about $440M in early 2025 to about $178M in early 2026.
The CCUS market is not disappearing, but the type of financing has changed. Year-to-date 2026 has more deals than the comparable period in 2025, with 15 deals versus 12, but much less capital, which means investors are writing more small checks and fewer scale-up checks.
The biggest difference in 2026 is the absence of megarounds. The comparable 2025 period included Climeworks at $162M and Twelve at $83M, while year-to-date 2026 has no qualifying round above $50M.
Round sizes have reset lower. The median CCUS round fell from about $24M in the comparable 2025 period to $7.5M in year-to-date 2026, while the average round fell from about $37M to about $12M.
CO2 Utilization Platforms are now the center of gravity in the CCUS market. They account for 10 of 15 year-to-date 2026 deals and about two-thirds of capital, spanning fuels, synthetic gas, concrete, cement substitutes, textiles, industrial materials, and biomanufacturing.
Direct Air Capture has lost relative momentum as a standalone category. DAC led the market in 2024 and remained large in 2025, but year-to-date 2026 contains only one qualifying DAC deal under the strict category classification.
The market has shifted earlier-stage. Full-year 2025 was dominated by later-stage and growth rounds, but year-to-date 2026 has no qualifying Series B, Series C, Series D+, or growth-equity deal. Series A, Seed, and Unknown-stage rounds now represent the entire period.
New startups are still entering the CCUS market. First financings represent 6 of 15 year-to-date 2026 deals and about 27% of capital, a much stronger new-entrant signal than in either full-year 2024 or full-year 2025.
The CCUS market is becoming more transatlantic, not truly global. North America and Europe together account for nearly 90% of year-to-date 2026 capital, while the Middle East and Asia-Pacific appear through isolated deals and Latin America and Africa remain absent under the strict public-equity filter.
This chart, featured in our CCUS market deck, illustrates revenue distribution by customer segment in the CCUS market
Is more or less capital going into the CCUS market?
Less capital is going into the CCUS market, and the decline is visible in both the reliable full-year comparison and the fresher year-to-date comparison. Full-year disclosed equity funding fell from about $779M in 2024 to about $488M in 2025, a decline of roughly 37%, and year-to-date 2026 funding fell to about $178M versus about $440M over the comparable period in 2025.
The full-year comparison matters because 2024 and 2025 are both complete years. That comparison shows that the CCUS market had already reset lower before 2026 started, with deal count falling from 22 deals in 2024 to 16 deals in 2025 and total capital falling by almost $291M.
The fresher year-to-date comparison adds a sharper message. The CCUS market produced 15 deals in early 2026, up from 12 over the comparable period in 2025, but capital fell by roughly 60%. That means the market is still active, but the funding environment has shifted away from large-scale equity financings.
The disappearance of megarounds is the cleanest explanation. The comparable 2025 period included Climeworks at $162M and Twelve at $83M, while year-to-date 2026 has no qualifying deal above $50M. Without those large rounds, the capital total drops even if more companies raise.
The practical takeaway is that the CCUS market is not suffering from a lack of funded startups. The CCUS market is suffering from a lack of large conviction rounds.
Is CCUS funding activity driven by more deals or larger rounds?
CCUS funding activity is currently being driven by more deals, not larger rounds. Year-to-date 2026 has 15 qualifying equity deals, compared with 12 over the comparable period in 2025, but total capital fell from about $440M to about $178M.
The round-size metrics make the shift very clear. Average round size fell from about $37M over the comparable 2025 period to about $12M in year-to-date 2026, while median round size fell from about $24M to $7.5M.
The median is especially important because it shows what a typical funded CCUS company is actually raising. A $7.5M median round is not a deployment-scale market; it is a validation, pilot, early commercialization, or option-building market.
The full-year comparison points in the same direction, though less dramatically. From 2024 to 2025, deal count fell from 22 to 16, average round size fell from about $35M to about $31M, and median round size fell from about $19M to about $17M.
The strongest reading is that the CCUS market is busier at the small-check level and weaker at the scale-up level. A headline that says deal count is up in 2026 is true, but incomplete; the more important fact is that round sizes have reset much lower.
Is CCUS capital moving toward later-stage or earlier-stage companies?
CCUS capital is moving toward earlier-stage companies in year-to-date 2026, reversing the later-stage funding pattern visible in full-year 2025. In 2025, Series B and later plus growth equity captured about 64% of capital, while year-to-date 2026 has no qualifying Series B, Series C, Series D+, or growth-equity round.
The 2024 and 2025 full-year comparison shows why the 2026 shift matters. In 2024, Series B and later represented about $350M, or roughly 45% of capital, driven by Twelve’s $200M Series C and Heirloom’s $150M Series B. In 2025, later-stage and growth capital rose to about $313M, or 64% of total funding.
So far in 2026, Series A is the largest stage by capital, with about $98M, or 55% of total capital. Seed is the largest stage by deal count, with 6 of 15 deals, but only about $20M, or 11% of total capital.
This is not a sign that the CCUS market has become seed-only. It is a sign that later-stage companies are not raising large disclosed equity rounds in the current window, while earlier-stage and Series A companies are still getting funded.
The better interpretation is that the CCUS market has shifted back toward experimentation and selective Series A commercialization. A mature market would show repeat Series B, Series C, and growth rounds; year-to-date 2026 does not show that yet.
This chart, included in our CCUS market deck, compares the main business model options for carbon capture project developers
Is the CCUS market maturing or still experimental?
The CCUS market is still experimental, although it is no longer purely scientific. Year-to-date 2026 has 15 qualifying deals, no round above $50M, no Series B+ deal, and a median round size of $7.5M, which points to a market still funding pilots, proof points, and early industrial validation.
Full-year 2025 looked more mature because growth equity and later-stage rounds captured most of the capital. Climeworks, Twelve, LanzaTech, OXCCU, and Aircapture all helped create the impression that the CCUS market was moving into scale-up financing.
But that maturity was narrow. The top three rounds captured about 60% of full-year 2025 capital, so the market’s maturity was concentrated in a few companies rather than spread across the category.
The same was true in 2024. Twelve, Heirloom, and CarbonCapture Inc. made the market look much larger and more mature, but the top three rounds still represented about 55% of total capital.
The most accurate description is that the CCUS market is in an early commercial selection phase. Investors are no longer just funding science, but they are also not yet broadly funding infrastructure-scale rollouts.
Are new startups still entering the CCUS market?
Yes, new startups are still entering the CCUS market, and year-to-date 2026 has a stronger new-entrant signal than either full-year 2024 or full-year 2025. First financings represent 6 of 15 year-to-date 2026 deals, or 40% of deal count.
That compares with 6 of 16 deals in full-year 2025, or 37.5%, and 5 of 22 deals in full-year 2024, or 22.7%. The direction is clear: new company formation is not drying up.
The capital share going to first financings is also stronger in 2026. First financings account for about $48M, or 27% of year-to-date 2026 capital, compared with only about 6% of full-year 2025 capital and about 5% of full-year 2024 capital.
That said, the first-financing signal should be read carefully because Rivan Industries’ large early raise lifts the capital share. The broader pattern is still that new CCUS startups are getting funded, but mostly at modest seed or early commercialization scale.
The strongest new-company formation is happening around applied industrial wedges: synthetic fuels, cement and concrete materials, wastewater-linked carbon removal, ocean storage, biomanufacturing, and mineralization. That is a very different profile from a market dominated only by standalone capture hardware.
Deeper analysis of the CCUS market
Are more investors entering the CCUS market?
More investors appear to be participating in the CCUS market in year-to-date 2026, even though total capital is down sharply. The market has about 65 disclosed named investors so far in 2026, compared with 46 over the comparable period in 2025 and 62 across full-year 2025.
This is one of the most important tensions in the CCUS market. Capital is falling, but investor count is not falling. That means investors are still interested, but they are spreading smaller checks across more companies.
The full-year comparison adds context. Unique investors fell from 103 in 2024 to 62 in 2025, alongside declines in total capital and deal count. That made 2025 look like a real pullback.
Year-to-date 2026 partially reverses that investor-breadth weakness. The market has already matched the full-year 2025 investor count, but without matching the full-year 2025 capital total or round-size profile.
The practical interpretation is that investor attention remains broad, but investor conviction is shallower. More investors are willing to take exposure to CCUS, but fewer are underwriting large-scale deployment risk.
This chart, included in our CCUS market deck, illustrates yearly funding for CCUS startups
Are top investors getting more or less active in the CCUS market?
Top investors are getting less active as repeat backers in the CCUS market, even though many strong investors still appear in individual rounds. In 2024, Siemens Financial Services appeared in 5 qualifying deals, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Lowercarbon Capital appeared in 3 each, and several other investors appeared twice.
That repeat-investor pattern weakened in 2025. Only Elemental Impact, Energy Capital Ventures, and Aramco Ventures appeared more than once in the qualifying 2025 dataset.
So far in 2026, repeat activity is even thinner. AP Ventures appears in Rubi and CREW Carbon, while Wireframe Ventures appears in Sora Fuel and Cocoon Carbon. No investor has the kind of multi-deal presence that Siemens Financial Services had in 2024.
This matters because repeat backing is a better maturity indicator than one-off participation. A market with many one-time investors can still be fragmented, while a market with repeated leads and co-leads usually has a clearer specialist underwriting base.
The better interpretation is that top investors have not abandoned the CCUS market, but they are more selective and less programmatic. They are backing specific business models rather than building broad exposure to the whole CCUS category.
Which CCUS subcategories are gaining momentum?
CO2 Utilization Platforms are gaining the clearest momentum in the CCUS market. In full-year 2024, utilization represented 4 of 22 deals and about 35% of capital; in full-year 2025, it represented 6 of 16 deals and about 39% of capital; and year-to-date 2026, it represents 10 of 15 deals and about 66% of capital.
The quality of the utilization momentum is important. In 2024, the category’s capital strength was heavily shaped by Twelve’s $200M Series C, but in 2026 the category’s lead is much broader across fuels, synthetic gas, concrete, cement substitutes, textiles, industrial materials, and biomanufacturing.
CO2 Storage Services are also gaining momentum after disappearing from the qualifying 2025 equity sample. Storage services represented 5 deals and about $96M in 2024, no qualifying deals in 2025, and 4 deals with about $45M in year-to-date 2026.
The storage rebound is not about generic storage infrastructure. It is about storage tied to operational wedges such as marine carbon removal, seawater chemistry, wastewater treatment, and mineral residues.
The strongest reading is that the CCUS market is shifting toward business models where CO2 is connected to a product, a process, an operating environment, or a durable storage pathway. That is where investors are finding clearer proof points.
Which CCUS subcategories are losing momentum?
Direct Air Capture is losing the most visible momentum in the CCUS market as a standalone category. DAC represented 10 of 22 deals and about 47% of capital in 2024, remained the largest capital category in 2025 with about 54% of dollars, and then fell to 1 deal and about 8% of capital in year-to-date 2026.
This does not mean air capture chemistry has become irrelevant. Some 2026 companies connect ambient CO2 or air-capture pathways to fuels or utilization models, but those companies are being funded as integrated industrial systems rather than pure standalone DAC platforms.
Carbon Capture Systems are also losing momentum. The category had 3 deals and about $46M in 2024, 4 deals and about $34M in 2025, and no qualifying deal in year-to-date 2026.
That absence is notable because point-source industrial emissions remain central to CCUS demand. The likely issue is not lack of need; it is that industrial capture hardware is difficult to finance as a standalone venture model without project partners, industrial procurement, or infrastructure finance.
CO2 Conditioning Systems and CO2 Transport Infrastructure remain structurally absent across all three periods. That is less a decline than a persistent non-emergence in venture-style public equity funding.
This chart, included in our CCUS market deck, shows why CarbonCure stands out in CCUS
Which regions are gaining momentum in the CCUS market?
Europe is gaining relative momentum in the CCUS market, especially by deal count and category breadth. Europe represented 6 of 22 deals and about 17% of capital in full-year 2024, 5 of 16 deals and about 43% of capital in full-year 2025, and 6 of 15 deals with about 37% of capital in year-to-date 2026.
The 2025 European capital share was heavily influenced by Climeworks, so the 2026 signal is more interesting. In 2026, Europe’s activity spans Carbonaide, Co-reactive, Cocoon Carbon, sequestra, Rivan Industries, and Reduciner, which means the region’s momentum is not dependent on one company.
North America still leads in absolute capital, but its momentum is mixed. North America remains the largest region in year-to-date 2026 with about $91M, yet that is far below the roughly $262M raised over the comparable 2025 period.
The Middle East has a small but notable signal through Gigablue’s $20M Series A first close in 2026, after having no qualifying deals in 2025. That is not enough to prove ecosystem-level momentum, but it does show that storage-linked carbon removal can attract capital outside the North America-Europe corridor.
The best interpretation is that Europe is the only region showing both breadth and resilience. The Middle East is visible episodically, while North America remains large but less capital-intensive.
Which regions are losing momentum in the CCUS market?
North America is losing momentum by capital, even though it remains the largest CCUS funding region. North American capital fell from about $582M in full-year 2024 to about $277M in full-year 2025, and then to about $91M in year-to-date 2026.
The recent comparison is especially sharp. North America raised about $262M over the comparable 2025 period and about $91M in year-to-date 2026, which means the region’s large-check activity has weakened materially.
North America is not losing its role as a company-formation region. It still produced 7 of 15 year-to-date 2026 deals, including Lydian, OCOchem, pHathom, Rubi, Sora Fuel, CREW Carbon, and Carbonyx.
The real loss is large-round dominance. In 2024 and 2025, North America produced many of the largest CCUS rounds, including Twelve, Heirloom, CarbonCapture Inc., Aircapture, LanzaTech, Capture6, and others. In 2026, the North American rounds are smaller.
Africa and Latin America are also weak under this strict public equity filter. Africa appeared once in 2024 through Octavia Carbon and then disappeared in 2025 and year-to-date 2026, while Latin America is absent across all three periods.
Is the CCUS market becoming more global or more regionally concentrated?
The CCUS market is becoming more transatlantic, not meaningfully more global. North America and Europe together represented 100% of qualifying capital in full-year 2025 and about 88% of capital in year-to-date 2026.
Compared with 2024, the CCUS market is less North America-dominated. North America captured about 75% of 2024 capital, 57% of 2025 capital, and 51% of year-to-date 2026 capital.
Europe has become a much more important counterweight. Europe’s capital share rose from about 17% in 2024 to 43% in 2025 and 37% in year-to-date 2026, while its deal count has remained meaningful.
But the rest of the world remains thin. Year-to-date 2026 includes one Middle East deal, one Asia-Pacific deal, and no Latin American or African deals. Full-year 2025 had no qualifying deals outside North America and Europe.
So the CCUS market is less regionally concentrated inside North America, but it is still concentrated inside a North America-Europe corridor. A truly global market would show repeated deal flow and meaningful capital across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, and the current evidence does not show that.
Market report covering CCUS regional momentum
This chart, included in our CCUS market deck, shows how carbon capture deployment has driven growth in the CCUS market over time
Is CCUS capital moving toward proven winners or new opportunities?
CCUS capital is moving more toward new opportunities in year-to-date 2026 than it did in 2024 or 2025, but the largest individual checks still favor companies with clear proof points. First financings represent 40% of year-to-date 2026 deals and about 27% of capital, compared with only about 5% to 6% of capital in full-year 2024 and full-year 2025.
This is a real shift. In 2024 and 2025, most dollars went to follow-on companies such as Twelve, Heirloom, CarbonCapture Inc., Climeworks, Aircapture, LanzaTech, OXCCU, Spiritus, Capture6, and others.
In 2026, first-financing companies such as Co-reactive, Intrinsic Foundries, Rivan Industries, Reduciner, Carbonyx, and pHathom Technologies show that investors are willing to fund new approaches. Those approaches are concentrated around synthetic fuels, cement materials, wastewater-linked removal, biomanufacturing, mineralization, and carbon-to-materials pathways.
However, the larger 2026 rounds are not random experiments. Lydian, Rivan, Gigablue, CREW Carbon, Cocoon Carbon, and Sora Fuel all have specific industrial pathways, deployment contexts, or commercial wedges.
The better interpretation is that capital is rotating from the obvious 2024 and 2025 winners toward the next set of application-specific opportunities. Investors are not funding generic CCUS promises; they are funding clearer routes to industrial adoption.
Is the CCUS market becoming winner-takes-most?
The CCUS market remains winner-takes-most by capital, but the pattern is less extreme in year-to-date 2026 than it was in full-year 2025. In 2025, the top three rounds captured about 60% of total capital; in year-to-date 2026, the top three rounds capture about 53%.
The largest deal is less distorting in 2026. Lydian’s $43.7M round represents about 25% of year-to-date capital, while Climeworks alone represented about one-third of full-year 2025 capital and Twelve represented about one-quarter of full-year 2024 capital.
But the long tail remains very small. The bottom seven deals in year-to-date 2026 represent only about 11% of total capital, which means many funded companies are financially minor relative to the leaders.
The top-ten concentration is also high. The top ten year-to-date 2026 rounds capture about 94% of capital, similar to the 95% top-ten share in full-year 2025.
The practical reading is that the CCUS market is not pure winner-takes-all, but it is clearly few-winners-plus-long-tail. Deal count overstates deployment capacity because only a small subset of companies receives enough capital to attempt meaningful commercialization.
Is the next wave of CCUS winners becoming visible?
The next wave of CCUS winners is becoming visible, but it is not confirmed yet. The clearest candidates are companies with larger 2026 rounds and specific commercial pathways, including Lydian, Rivan Industries, Gigablue, CREW Carbon, Cocoon Carbon, Sora Fuel, and Rubi.
The strongest signal is not round size alone. The more useful filter is whether a CCUS company has a specific CO2 pathway, a plausible customer or offtake route, and a deployment model that does not require waiting for a full CCUS infrastructure network.
That is why CO2-to-fuels, CO2-to-materials, cement and concrete mineralization, wastewater-linked removal, and ocean or storage-linked models are becoming more visible. These companies can explain not only how CO2 is captured or stored, but also who might pay and what operational environment the technology fits into.
The caution is that year-to-date 2026 has no Series B+ round. A confirmed winner set would normally show later-stage follow-on rounds, repeat strategic investors, and stronger evidence of deployment.
So the next wave is visible in pattern form, not yet proven in outcome form. The likely winners will be the companies that turn industrial wedges into repeatable revenue, verified durable removal, or bankable deployment partnerships.
Full market view on emerging CCUS winners
As this chart shows, and as featured in our CCUS market deck, search interest in carbon credits has grown significantly
Is the CCUS funding landscape fragmenting or consolidating?
The CCUS funding landscape is fragmenting by company count, investor participation, and subcategory mix, even while capital remains concentrated in the largest rounds. Year-to-date 2026 has more deals than the comparable 2025 period, more disclosed investors than full-year 2025, and a wider mix of utilization and storage-linked models.
The investor pattern is the clearest fragmentation signal. In 2024, Siemens Financial Services appeared in 5 deals and several investors appeared repeatedly; in year-to-date 2026, only AP Ventures and Wireframe Ventures appear more than once.
The subcategory pattern also looks fragmented. CO2 Utilization Platforms dominate 2026, but the funded companies are spread across fuels, synthetic gas, concrete curing, cement substitutes, textiles, industrial materials, biomanufacturing, and mineralized materials.
At the same time, capital is not evenly distributed. The top three year-to-date 2026 deals capture more than half of total capital, and the top ten capture about 94%.
The best description is that the CCUS market is fragmenting at the opportunity-discovery layer and consolidating at the capital-allocation layer. Many companies are being tried, but only a few are receiving enough capital to matter near term.
Where is investor attention shifting in the CCUS market?
Investor attention in the CCUS market is shifting away from standalone capture scale-up and toward CO2 utilization, industrial materials, synthetic fuels, and storage models with operational wedges. In year-to-date 2026, CO2 Utilization Platforms represent 10 of 15 deals and about 66% of capital, while Direct Air Capture represents only 1 deal and about 8% of capital.
The shift is not simply away from climate ambition. It is a shift toward business models that can explain who pays, what product is produced, and why deployment can happen before a full CCUS infrastructure network exists.
The 2026 utilization companies show the pattern clearly. Lydian, Sora Fuel, Rivan, and Reduciner connect CO2 to fuels or synthetic gas; Cocoon, Carbonaide, Co-reactive, and Carbonyx connect CO2 or mineralization to construction materials; Rubi connects CO2 to materials and textiles; Intrinsic Foundries connects carbon emissions to biomanufacturing.
Storage attention is also shifting toward embedded operating models. CREW Carbon connects carbon removal to wastewater treatment, Gigablue to marine systems, pHathom to seawater chemistry, and sequestra to mineral residues.
The persistent absence of CO2 Transport Infrastructure and CO2 Conditioning Systems shows where investor attention is not shifting. Investors are funding the visible application layer of CCUS, not the midstream infrastructure layer as standalone venture-backed pure-play companies.
Deeper analysis of investor attention in the CCUS market
INSIGHTS
The insights below come from reviewing disclosed equity funding in the CCUS market across full-year 2024, full-year 2025, and year-to-date 2026 through early July.
- The CCUS market is not suffering from a lack of funded companies; it is suffering from a lack of large conviction rounds. Year-to-date 2026 deal count is higher than the comparable 2025 period, but capital is down by roughly 60%, which means the market’s weakness is capital depth rather than startup supply.
- The cleanest reset is visible in round size. Average round size fell from about $37M over the comparable 2025 period to about $12M in year-to-date 2026, while median round size fell from about $24M to $7.5M. That is a shift from scale-up financing to option-style financing.
- The decline did not begin in 2026. Full-year capital had already fallen from about $779M in 2024 to about $488M in 2025, so the 2026 weakness should not be dismissed as a short-term timing artifact.
- The market’s center of gravity has moved from “capture CO2” to “make CO2 economically useful or operationally embedded.” That shift is visible in year-to-date 2026, where CO2 Utilization Platforms account for about two-thirds of both deals and capital.
- Direct Air Capture has moved from dominant standalone category to embedded feature. DAC led capital in 2024 and 2025, but in 2026 air-capture logic increasingly appears inside fuels or utilization models rather than as pure standalone DAC financing.
- The strongest 2026 companies tend to offer a commercial bridge, not just a climate benefit. Companies tied to fuels, materials, wastewater, concrete, synthetic gas, textiles, or industrial inputs are easier to underwrite than companies selling only future carbon disposal.
- The absence of $50M+ rounds in year-to-date 2026 matters more than the increase in deal count. A market with 15 smaller deals and no megarounds cannot support the same deployment expectations as a market with fewer deals but Climeworks-, Twelve-, Heirloom-, or CarbonCapture-sized financings.
- First financings are more meaningful in 2026 than in either 2024 or 2025. They represent 40% of deals and about 27% of capital, which shows real new-company formation rather than only recycled capital into known platforms.
- The CCUS market remains financially top-heavy even without megarounds. The top three year-to-date 2026 rounds account for more than half of capital, while the bottom seven deals account for only about 11%.
- The absence of CO2 Transport Infrastructure and CO2 Conditioning Systems across all three periods is a structural warning. The market is financing capture, utilization, and storage-adjacent applications, but not the connective tissue needed for a fully scaled CCUS system.
- That absence does not mean transport and conditioning lack value. It likely means those functions are being financed through incumbents, project finance, regulated infrastructure, corporate balance sheets, or bundled project developers rather than venture-backed pure-play startups.
- The CCUS market is becoming more transatlantic but not truly global. Europe has gained share versus North America, but North America and Europe still account for almost all 2025 capital and nearly 90% of year-to-date 2026 capital.
- Europe’s 2026 momentum is broader than a single company. Unlike 2025, when Climeworks heavily shaped Europe’s capital share, year-to-date 2026 European activity spans synthetic fuels, cement substitutes, mineralization, concrete curing, and CO2-to-industrial-materials models.
- North America remains the largest funding region, but it has lost large-check dominance. The region still produces many companies, but the drop from about $262M over the comparable 2025 period to about $91M in year-to-date 2026 shows a sharp decline in North American capital intensity.
- Investor participation is broadening while repeat conviction is narrowing. Year-to-date 2026 has about 65 named investors but only two repeat investors, which means many investors are experimenting while few are building repeated CCUS portfolios.
- Repeat investor activity is one of the best maturity indicators, and that indicator has weakened since 2024. Siemens Financial Services’ five-deal presence in 2024 has no equivalent in 2025 or year-to-date 2026.
- The CCUS market is currently a collection of application-specific bets rather than a single coherent category. CO2-to-fuels, CO2-to-concrete, CO2-to-materials, ocean CDR, mineralization, wastewater-linked removal, and biogenic storage have different customers, proof points, and capital needs.
- The strongest funding signal is not “carbon removal” by itself; it is carbon removal plus an industrial operating context. Investors appear to reward companies that can identify both the carbon pathway and the customer pathway.
- The market is not mature enough for average round size to be the main health indicator. The average is repeatedly distorted by a few large rounds, so median round size, top-three capital share, and megaround count are better indicators of typical financing conditions.
- The 2026 median round of $7.5M implies the typical funded company is still in validation or early commercialization. That round size is not enough for capital-intensive CCUS infrastructure deployment unless the company has a modular model or partner-funded deployment path.
- Storage is fundable when it is packaged with a specific operational wedge. CREW Carbon uses wastewater, Gigablue uses marine CDR, pHathom uses coastal facilities and seawater chemistry, and sequestra uses mineral residues; generic storage capacity alone is not the funded story.
- A future rebound in the CCUS market will probably require the return of Series B+ and growth rounds, not merely more seed deals. More seed activity refreshes the pipeline, but larger follow-on capital is needed to prove that the pipeline is producing scalable companies.
- The most useful forecasting rule is to separate CO2 pathway credibility from business-model credibility. The strongest CCUS companies increasingly need both: a defensible way to capture, convert, or store CO2, and a credible route to industrial adoption.
This chart, included in our CCUS market deck, shows how carbon removal marketplace technology has evolved over time
OUR METHODOLOGY TO BUILD THIS TRACKER
We built this CCUS funding tracker by reviewing publicly disclosed equity rounds raised by pure-play CCUS companies between January 2024 and early July 2026. A company counts as pure-play when more than 80% of its activity is dedicated to capturing CO2, conditioning CO2, moving CO2, using CO2, or storing CO2 in a way that prevents atmospheric release.
We applied four core filters. First, we only included equity rounds, so grants, debt, structured financings, project-only finance, acquisitions, and business combinations are excluded unless the equity component is clearly disclosed and separable. Second, we only counted rounds of $300K or more. Third, we only kept pure-play CCUS companies, which means we excluded general decarbonization advisory, generic carbon accounting, standalone carbon-credit trading, and CO2 uses that are primarily short-lived or not tied to durable CCUS. Fourth, every included round had to be confirmed by a direct company announcement, press release, tier-1 media report, specialized industry source, or relevant regional publication.
We excluded undisclosed-amount rounds because including them would distort dollar-based metrics such as total capital, average round size, category share, stage share, and regional share. When a financing package included equity and non-equity capital, only the disclosed equity portion was counted if the split was available. When non-USD rounds were included, the round was converted into rounded USD using the disclosed or contemporaneous reporting available in the source material.
The final analysis compares full-year 2024, full-year 2025, and year-to-date 2026 through early July. Because 2026 is incomplete, the 2026 figures should be read as a fresh but preliminary signal, while the 2024 and 2025 full-year figures provide the more reliable structural comparison.
Related blog posts
- What is new in the CCUS market?
- What is the latest news in the CCUS market?
- What is the real size of the CCUS market today?
- What are the latest funding developments in the CCUS market?
- How funding activity has evolved in the CCUS market
- The startups that have raised the most funding in the CCUS market
