Water-tech startup Crew Carbon announced that it has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round, with proceeds aimed at scaling its wastewater treatment optimization and carbon removal technology and expanding its workforce.

According to Crew Carbon, the financing comes as the wastewater treatment industry faces growing pressure from tighter regulations and having to treat higher volumes of wastewater with aging legacy infrastructure, driving a need for solutions that work within and expand the capacity of existing systems without requiring massive capital investments.

Launched in 2022 as a Yale University spinout, Connecticut-based Crew Carbon develops carbon removal technology that integrates into wastewater treatment facilities to accelerate mineral weathering processes that permanently store atmospheric CO2.

The company’s technology uses strategically sourced alkaline minerals, including calcium carbonate, to optimize conditions such as pH and alkalinity within wastewater treatment systems. According to Crew, the process improves biological treatment performance while permanently removing CO2 and other superpollutant emissions in a measurable form, leveraging existing industrial infrastructure without requiring the extensive permitting and federal support often associated with other carbon removal approaches.

According to the company, its technology has been deployed at nearly 10 wastewater treatment facilities across the U.S. and Europe, including projects with utilities such as the Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD). The company added that it has secured several Requests for Proposals (RFPs) with utilities across the U.S.

The company said that it has delivered verified carbon removal credits to corporations through long-term agreements facilitated by Frontier, including customers such as JPMorganChase, Google, Autodesk, and Stripe. Crew added that it has secured more than $33 million in carbon removal offtake agreements to date.

Crew said that the new capital will be used to create partnerships with additional wastewater utilities and expand the company’s management team.

Crew said:

“Crew is positioned to become a category-defining leader in water and climate as its patented technology addresses the wastewater industry’s mounting challenges, allowing facilities to get more out of aging infrastructure to improve treatment efficiency and save costs for utilities and ratepayers — while removing carbon dioxide (CO2) at scale.”

The new funding round was led by Burnt Island Ventures, with participation from AP Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, Builders Vision, Kibo Invest, Idemitsu Ventures, New York Ventures, and family office investors, alongside existing investors Counteract, ANIMO Ventures, Connecticut Innovations, Ponderosa Ventures, and Echo River Capital. The raise includes $19 million in equity and $6 million in grant and other non-dilutive funding.

Tom Ferguson, Partner at Burnt Island Ventures said:

“Crew’s water technology is driving jaw-dropping results for wastewater customers. On top of the improvements they deliver to wastewater utilities, Crew’s precise measurement of permanent carbon removal is highly differentiated in the crediting market and empowers carbon credit buyers to know exactly what they are paying for. Together, Crew’s technology and business model are aligning good environmental outcomes with the bottom line for a massively impactful industry.”