Supermajor Eni, through its Eni Next subsidiary, investment firm Audacy Ventures and Neva SGR have all pledged cash to the company.

The capital raised will go towards progressing the demonstration plant of CPT’s PolyActive membrane-based carbon capture technology at Holcim’s Höver cement works, near Hannover in Germany.

It is expected to be operational in Q4 of 2023 and capture between 6,000 and 16,000 tonnes a year. Two further phases of the projects are planned to capture 200,000 tpa and 1.0 million tpa starting-up in 2025 and 2026 respectively.

And a further capital raise is planned to underwrite the cost of future expansion, leading to the commencement commercial operations in 2024.

CPT was formed in 2019 to commercialise emerging environmental technologies with the aim to become a leading global supplier of carbon capture plants, lowering the cost base and barriers to the adoption of commercial carbon capture.

Its technology is designed to capture CO2 from carbon rich flue gas streams, and has already been technically proven in the laboratory and piloted in two coal-fired power stations.

Andrew Corner, the managing director of CPT, said: “We are delighted to have the support of these three major new investors. The investment demonstrates their confidence in the commercial potential of our technology as well as the CPT team and our partners.

“CPT is committed to bringing affordable, modular decarbonisation solutions to industries and sectors that historically have been hard to decarbonise. We believe that our technology will significantly reduce the cost of carbon capture and help to accelerate its adoption at scale.

“This investment will enable us to show the potential of our technology and how CPT can be a leading player in providing appropriate affordable solutions to help decarbonise industry.

“We look forward to working with our new investors and to providing further updates in due course.”

Gabriele Franceschini, chairman and chief executive of Eni Next said: “This project confirms the importance of CCS for reducing emissions in hard-to-abate sectors. At the same time, it reinforces Eni Next’s commitment towards CCS technological development as a key lever to implement energy transition. For these reasons, Eni Next supports CPT to develop and commercialize a promising technology aimed at capturing CO2 from carbon rich flue gas streams.”

Toby Chan, co-founder and partner of Audacy Ventures commented: “Carbon capture technologies play an essential role in our global efforts to decarbonise. Audacy is pleased to participate in the round and we are excited to support the CPT team in becoming a technology and cost leader to enable large-scale adoption in this space.”

Mario Costantini, CEO and general manager of Neva SGR commented: “The technology developed by Cool Planet Technologies has the potential to respond effectively and quickly to the capture of CO2 in various industrial sectors. This is a concrete investment of the Neva First Fund in accordance with the industrial transition towards ESG principles.”

Mr Arne Stetcher Head of Decarbonisation for Holcim Deutschland GmbH commented: “The first very successful pre-test of the innovative CPT technology in our cement plant in Germany as already demonstrated the high technical and commercial potential of this technology.

“On the Holcim side we are very pleased that CPT now reached the next level in the development of the company.”