What are the fundraising trends in the carbon removal market?
In our updated market reports, you will find everything you need
SUMMARY
We analyzed publicly disclosed equity rounds raised by pure-play carbon removal companies across full-year 2024, full-year 2025, and year-to-date 2026 through early July. The screen kept only disclosed equity rounds of $300K or more and excluded grants, debt, offtakes, project finance, undisclosed strategic investments, and adjacent climate companies where durable atmospheric carbon removal was not the core business.
Capital going into the carbon removal market is clearly lower. Full-year disclosed equity funding fell from about $572M in 2024 to about $442M in 2025, and the freshest year-to-date signal is much weaker: about $67M in early 2026 versus about $309M over the comparable period in 2025.
The carbon removal market is not collapsing in deal count, but it is seeing smaller checks. The comparable early-2026 and early-2025 periods both had 7 qualifying deals, but the average round fell from about $44M to about $9.6M, and the median round fell from about $27.5M to about $3.25M.
Full-year 2025 looked more later-stage than 2024 because late-stage and growth capital rose from about 30% of total funding to about 44%. But that maturity signal was thin, because one Climeworks growth-equity round represented about 37% of all 2025 capital.
The carbon removal market remains early and experimental overall. Seed and Series A rounds represented 88% of deals in 2024, about 81% in 2025, and about 86% in year-to-date 2026, while Series C and Series D+ activity remained absent.
Direct Air Capture was the historical capital magnet, taking about 63% of 2024 funding and about 59% of 2025 funding. But there were no qualifying disclosed Direct Air Capture equity rounds in year-to-date 2026, making its current absence one of the most important negative signals in the market.
Carbon Mineralization, Biochar Projects, Ocean Carbon Removal, and Biomass Carbon Removal are gaining relative attention. In year-to-date 2026, capital was led by Carbon Mineralization at about 34%, Biochar Projects at about 32%, and Ocean Carbon Removal at about 30%.
Capital remains highly concentrated. The top 3 deals captured about 50% of capital in 2024, about 60% in 2025, and nearly 88% in year-to-date 2026, which means the carbon removal market is increasingly winner-takes-most by dollars even as it remains technically diverse.
Investor repetition has weakened. In 2024, several high-signal investors appeared repeatedly, including Siemens Financial Services, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Carbon Removal Partners, and Ponderosa Ventures. In 2025, only three investors appeared more than once, and in year-to-date 2026 no disclosed investor appeared in more than one qualifying deal.
The main interpretation is that the carbon removal market is moving from pathway enthusiasm to execution proof. Investors are less willing to fund generic carbon removal claims and more focused on companies that combine durable removal with credible MRV, buyer access, infrastructure integration, and a deployable operating model.
Is more or less capital going into the carbon removal market?
Less capital is going into the carbon removal market, and the decline is visible in both the reliable full-year comparison and the freshest year-to-date comparison. Full-year disclosed equity funding fell from about $572M in 2024 to about $442M in 2025, a decline of roughly 23%, while early-2026 funding fell to about $67M versus about $309M over the comparable period in 2025.
The full-year comparison is the cleaner structural signal because it compares two complete years. It says the carbon removal market cooled in 2025, but did not collapse: capital declined, deal count fell from 25 to 16, and the market became more dependent on a few large checks.
The year-to-date comparison is fresher and much weaker, but it is also more fragile. The carbon removal market produced 7 qualifying disclosed equity deals in early 2026, the same number as over the comparable period in 2025, but 2026 did not have anything like Climeworks’ $162M raise or Aircapture’s $50M round.
The right interpretation is that the carbon removal market is not being abandoned, but equity capital has become much more selective. Investors are still funding companies with credible deployment pathways, MRV systems, buyer access, or industrial integration, but the market is no longer behaving like a broad capital expansion.
This matters because carbon removal activity can appear through offtakes, grants, advance market commitments, project finance, and strategic partnerships rather than priced startup equity. But for venture and growth equity specifically, the signal is clearly down: 2025 was lower than 2024, and early 2026 is much lower than the comparable period in 2025.
Is carbon removal funding driven by more deals or larger rounds?
Carbon removal funding is being driven by round size, not by more deals. Full-year 2025 had fewer deals than 2024, with 16 deals versus 25, yet the average round size increased from about $22.9M to about $27.6M, which means headline capital in 2025 was preserved by a few larger checks.
The largest 2025 rounds explain the pattern. Climeworks raised $162M, Arbor Energy raised $55M, Aircapture raised $50M, and Varaha raised $30.5M. Without those larger rounds, the carbon removal market would have looked much smaller and much more early-stage.
The year-to-date 2026 signal points to a different kind of weakness: deal count is not the main problem, but round size is. Early 2026 had the same number of qualifying deals as the comparable period in 2025, but the average round size fell from about $44M to about $9.6M, and the median round size fell from about $27.5M to about $3.25M.
That means the carbon removal market has shifted from “fewer but still sometimes large” in 2025 to “similar deal count but much smaller checks” in 2026. Investors remain willing to fund carbon removal companies, but they have become much less willing to underwrite large scale-up rounds.
The practical takeaway is simple: deal count alone makes the carbon removal market look healthier than it is. The better indicator is whether the market is producing $50M-plus rounds, and so far in 2026 it has not.
Is carbon removal capital moving toward later-stage or earlier-stage companies?
Carbon removal capital moved toward later-stage companies in full-year 2025, but the freshest 2026 signal points back toward earlier-stage companies. In 2024, late-stage capital, defined as Series B and above plus growth equity, represented about $170M, or 30% of total capital. In 2025, late-stage and growth capital rose to about $193M, or 44% of total capital.
The 2025 later-stage signal was real, but it was thin. Climeworks’ $162M growth-equity raise alone represented about 37% of all 2025 capital, and Varaha’s $30.5M Series B added another later-stage signal. That made the carbon removal market look more mature than the median company actually was.
So far in 2026, the carbon removal market has moved back toward early-stage funding. Seed and Series A deals accounted for about $47M, or 70% of capital, while Series B and later accounted for only about $20M, or 30%.
Deal count tells the same story even more clearly. Seed rounds represented 4 of 7 qualifying deals in early 2026, or 57%, while there were no growth-equity rounds, no Series C rounds, and no Series D+ rounds.
The best reading is that the carbon removal market has a thin scale-up layer rather than a durable late-stage financing base. A few companies can raise large follow-on rounds, but the broader market remains concentrated around seed and Series A.
Is the carbon removal market maturing or still experimental?
The carbon removal market is still experimental overall, but it is no longer purely speculative. The strongest evidence of experimentation is the stage mix: seed and Series A rounds represented 88% of deals in 2024, about 81% in 2025, and about 86% in year-to-date 2026.
The median round size reinforces the same conclusion. The median carbon removal round was about $11.4M in 2024, about $12.5M in 2025, and only about $3.25M so far in 2026. That is not the profile of a market with many proven scale winners.
Where maturation is visible, it is narrow and company-specific. Larger rounds have gone to companies that can point to deployment infrastructure, strategic investors, buyer relationships, MRV systems, or industrial integration, rather than just a technical carbon removal claim.
Examples from the largest rounds make the pattern clear. Heirloom, CarbonCapture, Climeworks, Terradot, Arbor Energy, Aircapture, Vaulted Deep, 44.01, Varaha, Capture6, Gigablue, and CREW Carbon all present more than a pathway; they present some combination of deployment, storage, buyers, measurement, infrastructure, or repeatability.
So the carbon removal market should be described as selectively maturing, not broadly mature. A small set of companies is moving toward commercial-scale proof, while the majority of the market remains early, technical, and validation-stage.
Are new startups still entering the carbon removal market?
Yes, new startups are still entering the carbon removal market, but new startup formation has been uneven and economically small compared with follow-on funding. In 2024, first financings represented 40% of deals but only about 8% of capital, and in 2025 first financings fell to about 19% of deals and 6% of capital.
The 2026 year-to-date picture looks more encouraging for new entrants, but it needs to be read carefully. First financings represented 4 of 7 deals, or 57%, and about $25M of $67M, or 37% of capital.
The reason the first-financing capital share looks stronger in 2026 is partly Gigablue’s $20M Series A. Without that one round, several new entrants were much smaller, including pHathom at about $2.9M, Carbonyx at about $0.86M, and Prithu at about $1.2M.
The better interpretation is that new companies are still forming, but the carbon removal market is no longer rewarding entry equally across all pathways. New entrants are most visible where carbon removal can be framed around existing infrastructure, waste streams, agricultural systems, ocean monitoring, mineral feedstocks, or MRV-enabled project development.
New company formation and new company capitalization are different signals. The carbon removal market is still producing new startups, but most new startups are not raising enough capital to prove large-scale durability, cost, verification, and buyer demand.
Are more investors entering the carbon removal market?
No, more investors do not appear to be entering the carbon removal market in a broad way. The investor base looks smaller and less repeat-active than it did in 2024, with approximately 94 disclosed named investors in 2024, about 55 in 2025, and about 24 in year-to-date 2026.
Tier-1 investor participation has also declined. The 2024 market had 29 unique tier-1 investors, full-year 2025 had 19, and early 2026 had only 5 under a conservative classification.
The year-to-date comparison reinforces the slowdown. Early 2026 had about 24 disclosed investors and 5 conservative tier-1 investors, compared with roughly 30 disclosed investors and 11 tier-1 investors over the comparable period in 2025.
Investor count should be interpreted cautiously because not every round discloses every investor, and some smaller financings list only a lead investor or omit names. But the direction is clear enough: the carbon removal market has not attracted a broad new wave of visible equity investors in 2026.
The strongest reading is that investors have become more selective, more pathway-specific, and less willing to participate repeatedly across multiple companies. That is not abandonment, but it is a clear sign that the investor base has not expanded in line with the market’s technical ambition.
Are top investors getting more or less active in carbon removal?
Top investors are getting less active in disclosed carbon removal equity rounds. In 2024, several high-signal investors made multiple disclosed deals, including Siemens Financial Services with 4 deals and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Carbon Removal Partners, and Ponderosa Ventures with 3 deals each.
In 2025, repeat activity was much thinner. Only Lowercarbon Capital, Gigascale Capital, and Elemental Impact appeared in more than one counted deal, and each appeared in only 2.
So far in 2026, the repeat-investor signal has disappeared under the strict screen. No disclosed investor appears in more than one qualifying carbon removal equity deal.
This is an important negative signal because repeat top-investor activity shows that knowledgeable investors are building conviction across pathways, not just making one-off bets. The decline from many repeat investors in 2024, to a few in 2025, to none so far in 2026 suggests the carbon removal market is fragmenting in investor behavior.
Top investors have not vanished. WestBridge Capital, RTP Global, Sony Innovation Fund, Builders Vision, and AP Ventures all appear in the 2026 screen, but their activity is not yet repeatable across the market.
Which carbon removal subcategories are gaining momentum?
Carbon Mineralization, Biochar Projects, Biomass Carbon Removal, and selectively Ocean Carbon Removal are the carbon removal subcategories gaining momentum. The signal is clearest when comparing the current-year category mix with the 2024 and 2025 category mix.
Carbon Mineralization is the most obvious near-term gainer. It had 1 deal in 2024, 2 deals in 2025, and 3 deals already in year-to-date 2026, making it the current deal-count leader.
Biochar Projects are also gaining relevance. Biochar had 2 deals in 2024, 4 deals in 2025, and 2 deals already in year-to-date 2026, with Varaha especially important because it links biochar to project origination, MRV, emerging-market supply, and institutional carbon-credit demand.
Biomass Carbon Removal is gaining selectively rather than broadly. Vaulted Deep in 2024, Arbor Energy in 2025, and pHathom in 2026 each connect biomass carbon removal with infrastructure-like systems, including geologic injection, clean baseload power, or coastal bioenergy integration.
Ocean Carbon Removal is gaining attention but not yet reliable momentum. Gigablue’s $20M Series A gives the category almost 30% of early-2026 capital, but the category’s conclusion is fragile because it rests on very few financings.
Which carbon removal subcategories are losing momentum?
Direct Air Capture is the carbon removal subcategory losing the most visible momentum in disclosed equity funding, at least so far in 2026. Direct Air Capture dominated 2024 with about $359M, or 63% of capital, and it still led 2025 with about $263M, or 59% of capital, but there were no qualifying disclosed Direct Air Capture equity rounds in year-to-date 2026.
That does not mean Direct Air Capture is becoming irrelevant. It remains the most institutionally validated carbon removal pathway by historical equity dollars, but it also requires large amounts of capital, energy, infrastructure, buyer confidence, and long deployment timelines.
MRV Software is also weak as a standalone venture category. MRV Software had 2 deals in 2024, 1 deal in 2025, and no qualifying deal so far in 2026, even though MRV remains strategically important inside many of the strongest company narratives.
Carbon Credit Marketplaces are conspicuously absent. There were no qualifying pure-play Carbon Credit Marketplace equity deals in 2024, 2025, or year-to-date 2026 under the strict screen, which suggests investor attention is going more toward removal supply, MRV, project development, and infrastructure.
Enhanced Weathering is mixed rather than clearly losing. It had meaningful late-2024 activity and Alt Carbon provided a 2025 signal, but early 2026 has not produced a clean pure-play Enhanced Weathering round under the category classification used here.
Which regions are gaining momentum in carbon removal funding?
Asia-Pacific and the Middle East are gaining relative momentum in carbon removal funding, while North America remains important but less dominant than before. In 2024, North America captured about 73% of capital, Europe captured about 20%, and Asia-Pacific captured no qualifying capital.
Asia-Pacific became visible in 2025, capturing about $43M, or nearly 10% of capital, through Alt Carbon and Varaha. In year-to-date 2026, Asia-Pacific captured about $21M, or 32% of capital, mostly through Varaha and Prithu.
The Middle East signal is smaller by deal count but meaningful by capital concentration. The region appeared through 44.01 in 2024 and Gigablue in 2026, showing that large single-company carbon removal bets can emerge from regions with relevant geology, energy infrastructure, ocean assets, and strategic capital.
The strongest regional momentum signal is not that Asia-Pacific or the Middle East have permanently overtaken North America. The stronger signal is that the carbon removal market is no longer purely a North America-Europe funding story.
India-linked and emerging-market carbon removal platforms are receiving more attention, especially when they connect project origination, biochar, MRV, agriculture, and carbon-credit demand.
Which regions are losing momentum in carbon removal funding?
Europe is losing momentum in the freshest carbon removal equity data, while North America is losing dominance but not relevance. Europe had a strong full-year 2025 capital share because Climeworks’ $162M raise was European, but that strength was heavily concentrated.
So far in 2026, Europe has only one qualifying deal, Sequestra’s roughly $3.25M seed round. Europe’s early-2026 capital share is only about 5%, down sharply from the comparable 2025 period, when Europe had Origen and Climeworks and captured about $175M.
North America is also less dominant than in 2024, but it is not disappearing. North America’s capital share fell from about 73% in 2024 to 44% in 2025 and 34% so far in 2026, yet the region still has the most deals in early 2026 with 3 of 7.
Latin America remains absent under this strict equity screen, and Africa is not consistently visible as a financing region. Africa appeared in 2025 through Terraton, but no qualifying Africa-region deal is included so far in 2026.
The careful interpretation is that regional activity exists beyond the disclosed equity screen, but public pure-play equity dollars above the threshold are not yet showing durable depth in Latin America or Africa.
Is the carbon removal market becoming more global or more regionally concentrated?
The carbon removal market is becoming more global by deal geography, but capital is still concentrated in a small number of regions and companies. In 2024, the market was heavily North America-led by capital, while 2025 and 2026 show a more distributed map across Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and North America.
The recent regional split looks more global on paper. In year-to-date 2026, North America captured about 34% of capital, Asia-Pacific about 32%, the Middle East about 30%, and Europe about 5%.
That apparent balance is fragile because the capital base is only about $67M. One $20M Gigablue deal gives the Middle East nearly 30% of capital, one $20M Varaha tranche gives Asia-Pacific nearly 30%, and one $19M CREW Carbon equity tranche gives North America most of its capital.
The right answer is that the carbon removal market is geographically broadening but not yet globally deepening. More regions are appearing, but the number of deals in each region is still small enough that one financing can swing the conclusion.
Geography should also not be read only as headquarters location. Carbon removal companies often raise capital in one region, deploy projects in another, sell credits globally, and depend on physical resources or infrastructure in a third.
Is carbon removal capital moving toward proven winners or new opportunities?
Carbon removal capital is moving toward both proven winners and new opportunities, but the larger dollars still favor validated follow-on stories. In 2024, follow-on rounds represented 60% of deals but about 92% of capital, and in 2025 follow-on rounds represented about 81% of deals and about 94% of capital.
The early-2026 picture is more balanced but not a complete reversal. First financings represented 57% of deals and 37% of capital, which means new opportunities are more visible so far in 2026 than they were in full-year 2025.
Even so, much of the current-year capital remains tied to companies with clearer execution pathways. Varaha is a follow-on Series B, CREW Carbon is a follow-on Series A, and Sequestra is treated as follow-on because prior pre-seed funding was found.
The strongest interpretation is that the carbon removal market funds new opportunities at the small-check level and proven or semi-proven winners at the larger-check level. Seed rounds are still happening, but large checks require evidence.
The evidence investors appear to reward includes credible investors, deployment pathways, MRV infrastructure, buyer access, strategic fit, infrastructure integration, and a plausible route to repeatable carbon removal delivery.
Is the carbon removal market becoming winner-takes-most?
Yes, the carbon removal market is increasingly winner-takes-most in capital allocation, even though it remains diverse in technology pathways. In 2024, the top 3 deals captured about 50% of capital, and in 2025 the top 3 captured about 60%.
So far in 2026, the concentration is even more extreme. The top 3 deals, Gigablue, Varaha, and CREW Carbon, captured about 88% of all qualifying disclosed equity capital.
This does not mean one company controls the whole carbon removal market. It means the funding market is highly skewed, with a small number of companies receiving checks large enough to define the year while most companies raise relatively small amounts.
The bottom-half share confirms the same pattern. In 2024, the bottom half of deals captured about 11% of capital; in 2025, about 14%; and so far in 2026, only about 7%.
The better phrase is winner-takes-most, not winner-takes-all. The carbon removal market is too technically diverse for one company or pathway to dominate everything, but equity dollars clearly cluster around a few companies with the strongest credibility package.
Is the next wave of carbon removal winners becoming visible?
The next wave of carbon removal winners is becoming partly visible, but the signal is still early and uneven. The clearest winners from 2024 and 2025 were companies that raised large follow-on rounds, including Heirloom, CarbonCapture, Climeworks, Terradot, Arbor Energy, Aircapture, Vaulted Deep, 44.01, Varaha, and Capture6.
The 2026 candidates are less mature but still informative. Gigablue, Varaha, and CREW Carbon are the clearest current-year scale candidates because they captured the largest early-2026 rounds.
Those companies also represent three different execution models. Gigablue provides a signal for ocean-based carbon removal and monitoring-heavy marine pathways, Varaha provides a signal for biochar and emerging-market project origination, and CREW Carbon provides a signal for wastewater-integrated mineralization or alkalinity-enhancement models.
The next wave is not fully confirmed because the 2026 round sizes are much smaller than the 2024 and 2025 leaders. The largest early-2026 round is $20M, compared with $150M for Heirloom in 2024 and $162M for Climeworks in 2025.
The most useful rule is that the next winners are more likely to be companies that combine removal with infrastructure, MRV, project development, or non-credit revenue support. The market is not rewarding pure pathway narratives as much as credible execution systems.
Is the carbon removal funding landscape fragmenting or consolidating?
The carbon removal funding landscape is fragmenting by investor participation and technology mix, but consolidating by capital allocation. Those two forces are happening at the same time.
On the fragmentation side, more categories are visible outside Direct Air Capture. Biochar Projects, Carbon Mineralization, Biomass Carbon Removal, Ocean Carbon Removal, and Enhanced Weathering all attracted capital across 2024, 2025, or year-to-date 2026.
Investor behavior is also fragmenting. In 2024, several top investors appeared repeatedly; in 2025, repeat investors became fewer; and so far in 2026, no disclosed investor appears in more than one qualifying deal.
But capital allocation is consolidating. The top 3 deals captured about 50% of capital in 2024, about 60% in 2025, and about 88% so far in 2026.
The practical interpretation is that carbon removal is not consolidating into one pathway yet. It is consolidating around credibility, with disproportionate capital going to companies that combine technical plausibility, measurement infrastructure, buyer access, and deployment pathways.
Where is investor attention shifting in carbon removal?
Investor attention in the carbon removal market is shifting away from generic carbon removal claims and toward deployable systems with measurable storage, operational integration, and buyer credibility. Direct Air Capture absorbed most capital in 2024 and 2025, but early-2026 equity capital has shifted toward Carbon Mineralization, Biochar Projects, Ocean Carbon Removal, and Biomass Carbon Removal.
The shift is not just about categories. It is about business model design. CREW Carbon uses wastewater treatment facilities, Varaha uses agricultural and biochar project networks, pHathom connects to coastal bioenergy plants, Carbonyx uses mining waste, and Prithu combines regenerative agriculture, biochar, biogas, and MRV.
Investor attention is also shifting toward measurement and market integrity. MRV Software has not raised much as a standalone category, but MRV appears inside many stronger project-development and removal-platform narratives.
The biggest shift is from pathway enthusiasm to execution proof. The sharper investor question is no longer only whether a pathway can remove carbon, but whether the company can produce durable removal, measure it credibly, sell it into real demand, and scale without impossible capital intensity.
The companies that answer all four parts of that question are the ones most likely to attract serious capital in the carbon removal market.
INSIGHTS
The insights below come from reviewing disclosed equity rounds in the carbon removal market across full-year 2024, full-year 2025, and year-to-date 2026 through early July.
- The carbon removal market is not shrinking because startups stopped raising; it is shrinking because large rounds became rarer. Early 2026 produced the same number of qualifying deals as the comparable 2025 period, but those deals produced only about $67M versus about $309M.
- Any carbon removal funding total is highly sensitive to one or two large rounds. Heirloom represented about 26% of 2024 capital, Climeworks represented about 37% of 2025 capital, and the top 3 early-2026 rounds represented nearly 88% of current-year capital.
- Direct Air Capture remains the historical capital magnet, but its absence from qualifying early-2026 equity rounds is a major signal. The market is not rejecting DAC technology, but it appears to be hesitating on new DAC equity checks while large-scale cost, energy, and deployment questions remain unresolved.
- The carbon removal market is moving from category validation to company validation. Investors are no longer rewarding “DAC,” “biochar,” or “ocean removal” as generic labels; they are rewarding companies that can show deployment logic, MRV credibility, buyer pathways, and infrastructure leverage.
- The market’s apparent maturity in 2025 was partly an optical effect created by Climeworks. Growth equity reached about 37% of 2025 capital, but that was one round, not evidence of a deep growth-stage market.
- Series A is the real institutional gate in carbon removal. Across the reviewed periods, the repeated financing challenge is not mature late-stage funding but the move from seed-stage technical promise to first commercial-scale deployment.
- First financings are a weak measure of market health unless they are paired with capital share. First financings were 40% of 2024 deals but only about 8% of capital, about 19% of 2025 deals but 6% of capital, and 57% of early-2026 deals but 37% of capital only because Gigablue raised a relatively large first round.
- The long tail of carbon removal experiments is real, but it is not well capitalized. The bottom half of deals captured about 11% of capital in 2024, about 14% in 2025, and only about 7% so far in 2026.
- The average round size is a dangerous metric in this market. In 2025, the average round was about $28M while the median was only about $12.5M; so far in 2026, the average is about $9.6M while the median is only about $3.25M.
- The most important financing split is not hardware versus software; it is standalone buildout versus infrastructure-embedded deployment. Companies plugged into wastewater, mining waste, agriculture, bioenergy, ocean systems, or industrial partners look more financeable than companies that must build an entire value chain themselves.
- MRV is becoming more important but not necessarily more independently fundable. Standalone MRV Software has little capital share, but MRV is embedded in many of the more credible project-development and removal-platform narratives.
- Carbon Credit Marketplaces are conspicuously missing as a pure-play equity category. That absence suggests the bottleneck in carbon removal is not simply trading infrastructure, but verified removal supply, durable storage, project execution, and buyer trust.
- Biochar is gaining breadth but not yet mega-round depth. Biochar Projects rose from 2 deals in 2024 to 4 in 2025 and 2 already in early 2026, but the category’s capital share still depends heavily on platforms like Varaha rather than a wave of very large production rounds.
- Carbon Mineralization is becoming one of the more active experimental categories. The category moved from 1 deal in 2024 to 2 in 2025 and 3 already in early 2026, suggesting investors are increasingly testing mineral waste, wastewater alkalinity, and industrial mineralization pathways.
- Ocean Carbon Removal has high optionality but weak statistical depth. A single $20M Gigablue round gives Ocean Carbon Removal almost 30% of early-2026 capital, but one round is not enough to prove broad investor conviction.
- Biomass Carbon Removal is not broad by deal count, but it attracts attention when paired with infrastructure or energy. Vaulted Deep, Arbor Energy, and pHathom all show that investors prefer biomass pathways when storage, power, or industrial integration is part of the model.
- Europe’s 2025 strength was concentrated rather than broad. Europe captured about 44% of full-year 2025 capital, but that result depended heavily on Climeworks; by early 2026, Europe had only one small qualifying round.
- North America is still central, but it is no longer overwhelming the market. North America’s capital share fell from about 73% in 2024 to 44% in 2025 and 34% so far in 2026, while Asia-Pacific and the Middle East became more visible.
- Asia-Pacific’s rise is project-development-led, not DAC-led. Varaha, Alt Carbon, and Prithu point toward agriculture, biochar, enhanced weathering, MRV, and emerging-market carbon-credit origination rather than the large DAC-heavy profile seen in North America and Europe.
- The decline in repeat top-investor activity is more concerning than the decline in total investor count alone. Repeat activity shows specialist conviction, while one-off participation can reflect opportunistic bets or category sampling.
- Strategic investors matter disproportionately in carbon removal because commercialization often depends on industrial infrastructure, energy systems, logistics, aviation, oil and gas, utilities, or corporate credit demand. Siemens, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Shell, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Marathon, Idemitsu, Sony, and other strategic names are not just capital providers; they are validation signals.
- Offtakes and equity should not be mixed when judging risk-capital momentum. Offtakes validate demand and buyer willingness, while equity rounds validate investor willingness to own company execution risk.
- The market’s bottleneck is shifting from “can carbon removal work?” to “can carbon removal be financed, verified, delivered, and scaled at acceptable cost?” The strongest financings increasingly answer the second question, not just the first.
OUR METHODOLOGY TO BUILD THIS TRACKER
We built this carbon removal funding tracker by reviewing publicly disclosed equity rounds raised by pure-play carbon removal companies across full-year 2024, full-year 2025, and year-to-date 2026 through early July. A company counts as pure-play when more than 80% of its activity is dedicated to technologies or projects that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it durably.
We define the carbon removal market as technologies and projects that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it durably. It includes Direct Air Capture, Biochar Projects, Enhanced Weathering, Biomass Carbon Removal, Ocean Carbon Removal, Carbon Mineralization, MRV Software, and Carbon Credit Marketplaces. It excludes broader adjacent markets unless the product is built specifically for this use case.
We applied four filters to build the dataset. First, we only included equity rounds, so grants, debt, offtakes, project finance, public-market listings, acquisitions, advance market commitments, and mixed financings without a clean equity amount were excluded. Second, we only counted rounds of $300K or more. Third, we only kept pure-play carbon removal companies under the 80% rule. And fourth, every entry had to be confirmed by a direct company announcement, press release, tier-1 media report, specialized industry source, or relevant regional publication.
Undisclosed-amount rounds were excluded because including them would distort dollar-based metrics such as total capital, average round size, median round size, category share, regional share, and concentration ratios. The tracker also excludes carbon-credit offtakes and advance market commitments because those validate buyer demand, not investor willingness to own company equity risk.
All values are reported in approximate USD where rounds were originally announced in another currency. Privately raised rounds that were never publicly announced are necessarily missing, which is a known limitation of any public-only funding tracker, but the final sample is designed to capture the disclosed, source-verifiable equity market as consistently as possible.
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