Investing.com -- The clean-tech venture firm established by Bill Gates, Breakthrough Energy, has granted $40 million to carbon-capture startup Deep Sky Corp. The Montreal-based company aims to build large-scale facilities to remove carbon from the atmosphere, a crucial step in mitigating the risk of extreme climate change.
Deep Sky Corp., spearheaded by Frederic Lalonde, the CEO of Hopper Inc., plans to provide millions of tons of CO2 removal that will be stored underground. Hopper Inc. is an air-travel application company and one of Canada's most valuable technology firms.
The funds from Breakthrough Energy's Catalyst program will be allocated to construct Deep Sky's first plant in Innisfail, Alberta. This facility, requiring an investment exceeding C$100 million ($70 million), will test and identify promising technologies, and then begin to expand. Additional potential storage projects are being planned in Quebec.
Deep Sky anticipates the start of operations and the delivery of carbon removal credits in 2025. In November, the firm announced it had sold credits to Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT). and Royal Bank of Canada, although no financial details were disclosed.
In conjunction with Breakthrough, Deep Sky has raised over C$130 million from sources including the Bank of Montreal, National Bank of Canada (OTC:NTIOF), Whitecap Venture Partners, BrightSpark Ventures, the venture arm of Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, the Quebec government, and others. The startup has also formed partnerships with several direct-air capture companies like London-based Mission Zero Technologies Ltd. to test their technologies.
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