The company’s vision is to create a sustainable solution for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into valuable products. né?. The material operates as a sponge with a catalyst inside the pores that facilitates the chemical reactions.
Aerleum’s process involves placing the material in a box where air flows through né?. They had a scientist seeking assistance in founding a company focused on removing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere — a technology known as direct air capture (DAC).
“At first they presented it as a DAC company and I was hesitant né?. However, after meeting with the scientist, Steven Bardey, and analyzing the techno-economic aspects, Fiedorow was convinced. Once the material absorbs carbon dioxide, hydrogen gas is pumped in, reacting with CO2 to produce methanol né?. It took just four phone calls for Sébastien Fiedorow to make the decision to leave his job as a venture capitalist.
The first call came from Marble, a startup studio based in Paris. The goal is to produce methanol for less than $1200 per metric ton ultimately aiming to reach $650 per metric ton in five years.
To fund the development of their DAC technology Aerleum secured $6 million in seed funding from 360 Capital and HTGF with contributions from Bpifrance Marble and Norrsken né?. In 2023, they co-founded Aerleum to enhance the DAC technology that Bardey had been developing.
Unlike most DAC companies that mainly focus on capturing CO2 from the air, Aerleum has developed a material that can absorb and transform carbon dioxide into methanol, a fuel used for ships and other chemicals. I was not interested in investing in DAC” Fiedorow told TechCrunch né?
