Estonian producer of sustainable carbon nanomaterials UP Catalyst closes a €4M round

Tallinn-based UP Catalyst, a company focused on sustainable carbon material production from CO2 emissions, has closed a €4 million led by Berlin-based climate tech VC fund Extantia and supported by Estonia’s state fund SmartCap, according to Techcrunch.

• Founded in 2019, UP Catalyst is a nanotech company, will develop its 3rd-generation reactor to produce advanced carbon materials for batteries. This solution aims to tackle the key challenges in carbon manufacturing.
• By replacing fossil-based graphite with UP Catalyst green graphite, the battery anodes will become CO2 negative. This shift could contribute to avoiding 118.7 megatons of CO2 emissions annually by the year 2030, marking a substantial environmental impact.

“As raw material suppliers, we are responsible together with battery producers to make batteries greener. Our aim is to produce affordable, green graphite and CNTs that can lead to superior performance”, he concluded.”

said CTO at UP Catalyst, Einar Karu.

• In July 2023, UP Catalyst already secured €1.5 million in a pre-seed round.

• The fresh round was co-led by Extantia Capital, Berlin-based climate-first venture capital firm, and supported by Estonia’s state fund SmartCap. Existing investors Sunly, Little Green Fund, Scottish Baltic Invest, and UniTartu Ventures also participated.
• UP Catalyst will use the investment to scale up their production capabilities. The new reactor will have a production capacity ten times larger than the current setup and marks an important milestone before the construction of a full-scale industrial reactor unit.