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44.01, a Omani developer of carbon mineralization tech, closed a USD 37 mn series A funding round to advance its carbon sequestration and storage technology around the world, according to a statement. The round was led by UAE’s tech investor Shorooq Partners and Norway’s Equinor Ventures — Equinor’s corporate venture capital arm for early-phase and growth companies. Bill Gates’ US-based Breakthrough Energy Ventures also participated in the round with follow-on investments.
Other new investors: Innovation Development Oman was the only other regional investor but UK-based Salica Investment’s Mena-focused Oryx Fund — which has an office in Abu Dhabi — aso contributed to the funding. The rest was collected from a variety of international investors including Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, UK-based Climate Investment (founded by the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative), Germany-based Planet A Ventures, Germany-based Siemens Financial Services, and Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation.
Where’s the money going? The funding will enable 44.01 to further develop its technology, scale commercial projects, and expand internationally, the statement adds. “Our investors bring a wealth of international expertise and experience that will help us to accelerate our development and ultimately mineralise CO2 at scale worldwide,” the company’s founder and CEO Talal Hasan said.
REFRESHER– How does their process work? 44.01’s Carbon Capture and Mineralization technology captures CO2 from the air, dissolves it in seawater, and injects it into formations of peridotite — a kind of rock that naturally mineralizes CO2 — deep underground. The technology can currently store approximately 50 to 60 tons of CO2 per day, Hasan said in a separate statement to Bloomberg. The company is aiming to boost their capacity to achieve daily sequestration of 100 tons of CO2 per injection borehole at a commercial scale.
44.01 is already active in Oman: The awardwinning firm, which started its operations in Oman in 2022, partnered with direct air capture (DAC) company Aircapture last year to establish a DAC and mineralization project in Oman. The project, set to start later this year, will have the capacity to deliver 500 tons of liquid CO2 annually with plans to increase the capacity later on. 44.01 is also collaborating with carbon capture specialist Climatework to study the deployment of DAC with storage in peridotite formations in Oman. The firm also collaborated with Omani-British green energy venture X2E to establish a JV called G2X, which will capture, process, and permanently store waste gasses in February.
The firm has already expanded to the UAE: UAE’s oil giant Adnoc invested USD 15 bn in a partnership with the Fujairah Natural Resources Corporation, renewables developer Masdar, and Omani carbon removal and 44.01 to pilot technology to permanently mineralize CO2 in rock formations in Fujairah last year.
