Google Ventures has led a £5.3 million pre-seed funding round for CUR8, a market-making platform for carbon removals.
Founded last year by Azimo co-founder and Google for Startups UK lead Marta Krupinska, climate scientist Dr. Gabrielle Walker, and net-zero expert Mark Stevenson, CUR8 aims to address the challenges facing global industries working towards decarbonisation by 2050. While numerous carbon removal technologies exist—including tree planting, direct air capture, and enhanced weathering—the industry is still emerging and grappling with hurdles such as limited supply, quality concerns, risks, and high costs. These obstacles often discourage companies from investing in carbon removal portfolios needed to offset their emissions.
CUR8 seeks to overcome these challenges by developing a platform that procures carbon removal credits from trusted suppliers and assembles high-quality portfolios that combine various strategies and methods. By standardizing the price at £150 per carbon removal credit, CUR8 aims to reduce costs over time as the market expands, making it more accessible for businesses of all sizes.
Dr. Walker commented, “I’ve been working in climate science for 30 years, and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and pessimistic about the 2050 net-zero deadlines. Carbon removal, along with large-scale decarbonisation, has the potential to help us achieve these goals, but we need the right tools to scale this market to 10 billion tonnes a year by 2050.”
The funding round, which also included participation from CapitalT, will be utilized to expand the team, increase operational capacity, and enhance the development of the CUR8 platform.