Early stage investment firm Antler Australia recently supported 13 startups as part of its ongoing program to build great local tech companies.

Startup Daily shares the details of each venture in the “Antler Investor Memos” series.

You can also meet the founders every Monday and Wednesday on the Startup Daily show at ausbiz.com.au.

This series is designed to give you a fast, a keen understanding of the startups and people involved, with many looking for follow-on capital after Antler’s initial pre-seed investment.

Company: carbonaught

Date of incorporation: 2022

Operating phase: Preseed

founders: ames Lyons, Andrew Pedley, Rhys Hefferman, Prof Balz Kamber and Assoc Prof Dave Rowlings

Current investors: antlers

Currently increasing: Yes

Company

carbonaught uses enhanced weathering processes to address two of the world’s greatest challenges: climate change and food security.

It provides customers with the ability to run their own decarbonization projects and push the resulting impacts through their supply chains.

Through carbon removal technology, it focuses solely on the decomposition of certain rock types in an organic fertilizer to permanently remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. By 2030, Carbonaught’s platform will remove one billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually. It will do this along with restoring degraded soils to support the global food supply.

The platform enables landowners to undertake their own enhanced weathering projects at scale, without the need for multi-year covenants with third parties over their land.

Carbonaught’s approach is resistant to flooding, fire and drought. It transparently reports both project origins and outcomes, including full carbon life cycle analysis and measurable links to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Antler investment thesis

“When we see an opportunity at Antler to make a strong impact coupled with a blue-sky founding vision, we get excited,” said Bede Moore, Managing Partner of Antler APAC.

“Carbonaught has this in spades. There is a comprehensive solution for the founders with Andrew and James at the helm, along with an advisory board spanning geochemistry, soil science and mining engineering.

“The traction of the team that secured two funded pilot projects alongside global recognition with the XPrize Carbon Removal Challenge only builds on the strong belief we have that Carbonaught is the team to demonstrate the value of enhanced weathering and carbon removal technologies at scale. to unlock. ”

Traction/milestones, so far

Carbonaught’s place 24th out of more than 1,400 global teams that participated in April’s Elon Musk’s XPrize Carbon Removal Challenge with its improved weathering carbon removal protocol.

This included several rounds of independent reviews by an internationally recognized judging panel that examined all aspects of the company, from core science and storage capacity to the gigaton-scale business model.

Carbonaught has mobilized projects in Queensland and Western Australia, is in talks with two overseas governments and is in the pre-feasibility phase for a 10,000 tonne carbon removal project with a large ASX200 company.

Due Diligence Resources

Explore Carbonaught’s Pitch Video and Investor Deck via The Antler Portfolio Disclosure Platform.

Latest financing

Pre-Seed from Antler

Use of funds

Antler Australia’s investment in Carbonaught has helped increase the workforce with two new employees and test equipment to start more projects. This will play an important role in accelerating the rate at which Carbonaught can grow.

The founders say:

“Climate change and food security are major and interconnected challenges facing humanity. Our approach to extracting highly available waste rock from mining and quarrying, crushing it and then spreading it on surrounding farmland as organic fertilizer can address both issues at scale,” said James Lyons, Carbonaught Co-Founder and CTO.

“Carbonaught exists to remove one billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually while increasing food security for millions of people by 2030.

“Antler is a start-up global VC with extensive experience and deep networks who see a fair share of business ideas. It was valuable to have the team share our vision and recognize the growth potential that we can clearly see in the next ten years.

“Operationally, Antler’s experience in growing businesses has also enabled us to avoid common mistakes and spend less time on unimportant things. This allowed us to spend more time on growing the company.”

What’s next?

Antler, an early stage global VC, recently showcased its latest investments in ambitious Australian founders and startups. Carbonaught was one of Antler Australia’s newest portfolio companies.

Find out how Carbonaught is using enhanced weathering processes to tackle climate change and food insecurity through the Antlers Portfolio Reveal Platform.

• StartupDaily is Antler’s official media partner in Australia.