Participated · Seed · Jun 2024

Sirona Technologies develops direct air capture (DAC) machines designed for speed, scalability and low capital expenditure. Founded in 2023 in Brussels and led by a former Tesla engineer, the company built three prototype generations in its first year that captured about 1 ton of CO2 per year. It says its next generation will capture roughly 20 times that amount by July. Sirona plans to deploy its first pilot capture plant in Kenya, with the pilot operational by the end of the year and a full‑scale commercial plant expected by early 2026. The company targets incremental scaling to capture 1 million tons of CO2 per year by 2030. The business emphasizes DAC’s permanence, verifiability, and role alongside renewables and nature‑based solutions in climate mitigation. Sirona Technologies develops direct air capture systems that push ambient air through a sorbent filter to selectively capture CO2, then release it by heating with steam. The company plans to supply the required heat by combining solar energy with heat pumps and thermal storage to reduce reliance on solar intermittency. Captured CO2 is compressed for permanent geological storage or conversion into products including aviation fuels, pharmaceutical inputs, battery‑recycling feedstocks, carbon‑neutral construction materials, and carbonated beverages. Co‑founded by former Tesla engineer Thoralf Gutierrez and thermodynamics engineer Dr. Gauthier Limpens, the team includes specialists from CERN, Oxford, and UCLouvain. Founded in January of this year, Sirona built its first prototype in under two months and, six months later, was testing a third‑generation unit reporting a 100x efficacy improvement over v1. The company closed a previously undisclosed $1 million Pre‑Seed funding round earlier this year and is backed by a syndicate of climate‑tech investors and engineers.