Ctrl-S Launches to Rescue and Scale Direct Air Capture Innovations

The carbon removal sector has a brand new safety net. Jason Hochman recently launched CTRL-S to gather and protect valuable intellectual property from direct air capture startups that shut down.

The climate tech industry is evolving incredibly fast. Many promising startups are unfortunately closing their doors before their technology can reach the market.

>> In Other News: Remove Expands Carbon Removal Accelerator to Latin America

When these companies close, their hard-earned experimental data and engineering insights usually disappear forever. CTRL-S steps in to buy and save this knowledge.

Preserving Climate Tech Knowledge

Hochman previously served as the executive director of the Direct Air Capture Coalition. He knows exactly how much time and money goes into developing these complex systems.

"A lot of the progress that they've made, a lot of the R&D, a lot of the innovation that has been hard-won over the past several years is at risk of being lost because of this shift in external factors," Jason Hochman, Founder and CEO of CTRL-S, told Heatmap News.

The founding team also includes Nicole Williams, former IP Lead at Carbon180. They are joined by Silvan Aeschlimann, a former carbon removal lead for Climeworks.

They will evaluate the acquired technology and make it available on a simple subscription platform. This lets larger energy companies or industrial players pick up where the original founders left off.

Expert Review and Diligence

Every single acquired asset gets a thorough review. The founding team evaluates the technical details before passing them to an independent advisory group of industry experts.

This group features leaders from various climate and energy organizations. Their combined experience guarantees that only high-quality data reaches the platform.

Right now, the company is closing its first two acquisitions and looking at several more. They are also actively raising a seed round of $2.5 million to expand their reach.

Finding New Uses for Saved Data

The platform will absolutely help other carbon capture companies. The stored knowledge could also easily spark breakthroughs in completely different industries.

Phil De Luna, former chief scientist for Carbon Direct and a member of the expert review committee for CTRL-S, sees huge potential for this archived data.

"It's often mixed with other gasses underground. These air contactors that are used in DAC, could they be repurposed to separate hydrogen from natural gas or other gas impurities underground?" De Luna explained.

Artificial intelligence companies can also use this specific information. AI models need massive amounts of experimental data to discover new sustainable materials.

Learning From Mistakes

Learning what doesn't work is honestly just as important as knowing what does. CTRL-S will deliberately preserve negative learnings to help future engineers avoid the exact same mistakes.

The team will look closely at the life-cycle analysis of the carbon removed and the true commercial potential of each individual component.

This dedicated process ensures that vital progress actually compounds over time. The climate tech sector can now build on past efforts instead of starting from scratch every single time.