Carbon Upcycling raises $24.5M to deploy low-carbon cement

What happened: Carbon Upcycling closed a $24.5 million investment from Builders Vision, the impact investing firm founded by Lukas Walton (of the Walmart Waltons), to scale its carbon capture and utilization (CCU) tech for low-carbon cement.

How it works: Carbon Upcycling turns industrial waste like steel slag or fly ash from coal plants into a cement alternative by reacting it with captured CO2. The process mineralized the carbon, locking it away permanently.

The result: a material that replaces up to 50% of traditional cement in concrete and improves strength by up to 40%.

Why it matters: Traditional cement has a huge climate footprint. Typically, it’s made by crushing and heating limestone to extremely high temperates. That process uses a huge amount of energy and emits almost one tonne of CO2 for every tonne produced. Carbon Upcycling’s approach can cut emissions by up to 60%.

It also addresses a looming supply issue: Cement makers rely on the ash and slag from coal-fuelled processes, and have to source more of their materials from Asia as coal is phased out in North America and Europe. Carbon Upcycling’s tech can transform lower-quality and under-used feedstocks into a local substitute, reducing cement makers’ reliance on imports.

What’s next: The fresh capital will support the company’s project pipeline including a flagship plant in Mississauga in partnership with materials giant CRH, plus future projects with TITAN Group and other industry partners.

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