Investment Notes: Fugu Carbon

Jelix is proud to back Fugu Carbon, the company that sucks C02 from the air at scale. 

In July 2024, Jelix Fund 1 participated in Fugu’s oversubscribed seed round led by Investible, with participation from global climate tech investors Counteract VC and Electrifi Ventures. Read the announcement article here.

Today, the industrial landscape is dominated by CO2 emissions stemming from fossil fuel sources, exacerbating atmospheric pollution. While global awareness of CO2's environmental impact is on the rise, its critical role in various industries often escapes notice. Sectors such as beverages, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture heavily depend on CO2. In addition, as the world moves towards net-zero economies, the imperative to decarbonize will extend to emerging markets such as Jet Fuel & the creation of carbon removal credits. Consequently, the CO2 industry faces mounting pressure to develop sustainable and cost-effective extraction alternatives. Fugu Carbon has emerged as a promising solution, attracting substantial investor interest worldwide.

Why Jelix is excited to back Fugu Carbon

Huge market will allow for multiple winners

The market for CO2 is substantial, valued at $80 billion USD. As demand for climate-neutral CO2 rises, particularly in emerging markets like sustainable aviation fuel and green fertilizers, there is an expected surge in market size to over $200 USD billion by the early 2030s. Whilst numerous competitors are aiming to capture and sell CO2, and some are very well capitalised, we believe the market to be so large that there will be multiple ‘winners.’ 

Product strategy provides a technical edge

Fugu Carbon takes on the biggest barrier to scale for CO2 capture - cost efficiency. Fugu Carbon tackles this global imperative to decarbonise the atmosphere by creating machines that extract CO2 from the air and sell it to customers. However, Fugu Carbon differs to other Direct Air Capture (DAC) companies due to its unique approach of using readily available materials for filters, renewable energy and innovative heat pumps - this will create cost efficiency, the largest barrier to scaling DAC. Excitingly, Fugu Carbon have built a small scale prototype which is successfully removing CO2 from the air proving out the technology. Fugu Carbon plans to serve a diverse range of industries, starting with brewers (already securing an LOI with a Sydney-based brewer), then expanding to other beverage companies, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals. 

In addition, Fugu Carbon are adopting a unique GTM strategy whereby they will leverage wholesalers to build commercial traction while scaling their technology infrastructure. This phased approach allows for early customer engagement, facilitates future project finance, and validates the business model for future capital raises. As production scales up, Fugu Carbon plans to transition away from wholesalers, optimizing profitability and ensuring sustainable growth.

Mission-driven founding team with deep subject matter expertise

Fugu Carbon is founded by two high calibre, subject matter experts with a very complimentary skillset. Luke Marshall and Mac Thompson are both veterans of Sun Cable, the largest solar project in the world, where they worked together in the C-suite for 5 years as CTO and COO respectively. Luke possesses a very strong technical background with an engineering PhD, whilst Mac has extensive experience building, scaling and exiting a series of technology businesses. 

This investment aligns perfectly with Jelix's mission and values, as a champion and early supporter of a transformative solution to one of the world's most pressing challenges.