SHERIDAN, WYOMING - April 14, 2026 - Sustaera, a direct air capture startup headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, has closed a $10 million Series A financing round to advance development of what it describes as a low-cost carbon removal technology powered by renewable energy. The raise is part of a broader cluster of milestones that includes a $1 million XPRIZE Milestone Award, selection for Third Derivative's inaugural carbon removal cohort, a multi-year carbon removal agreement with Shopify, and inclusion in Stripe Climate's expanded portfolio - a combination that materially reduces perceived technology and commercial risk for the company at an early stage of development.
Technology and Approach
Sustaera's system is designed to extract carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere using renewable energy, with the goal of enabling removal and reuse of carbon at scale. The company characterizes its approach as novel within the direct air capture category - a class of technologies that mechanically or chemically strips COâ‚‚ from ambient air rather than from point-source industrial emissions. Because DAC operates independently of specific emission sources, it can in principle be deployed wherever suitable energy inputs are available. Sustaera's renewable energy integration is a deliberate design choice that addresses the net carbon cost of running the capture process - a fundamental requirement for any operator seeking credible climate accounting and procurement eligibility with major corporate buyers.
Business Impact
The $10 million Series A provides Sustaera with development capital specifically targeted at reducing the cost of its DAC process - the primary commercial barrier across the sector. The XPRIZE Milestone Award, valued at $1 million, represents an independent technical validation with direct funding attached, carrying weight with institutional investors who treat competition-based assessments as a proxy for technology readiness. Selection as part of Third Derivative's first cohort dedicated to carbon removal adds accelerator-level institutional endorsement. A Gates-backed fund has also made an investment in the company, though the name of the fund and deal terms are not disclosed in publicly available information. Collectively, these endorsements lower perceived risk for subsequent capital rounds and signal that Sustaera's technology claims have withstood external scrutiny.
Commercial Partnerships
On the demand side, Shopify has entered a multi-year carbon removal agreement with Sustaera - a structured offtake commitment from one of the more active corporate purchasers in the voluntary carbon removal market. Stripe Climate, which publicly disclosed increasing its total carbon removal commitments to $15 million, added Sustaera as one of four new companies to its portfolio. Offtake agreements and portfolio inclusions of this type function as both revenue signals and commercial references, demonstrating to future investors that procurement-grade due diligence has already been applied to the technology. The presence of multiple independent buyers reduces concentration risk and supports a more durable demand profile than a single-customer arrangement would provide.
Sector Context
Direct air capture remains an operationally demanding and cost-intensive category at current technology maturity levels. The central commercial challenge for all DAC operators is closing the gap between current removal costs and the price points at which large-volume corporate and governmental buyers can integrate DAC into their decarbonization programs. Sustaera's explicit framing of its Series A as funding for "low-cost" DAC development places cost reduction at the center of its engineering roadmap. The accumulation of XPRIZE recognition, accelerator cohort placement, Gates-backed investment, and corporate offtake agreements from Shopify and Stripe Climate indicates a strategy of layering independently credentialed validations across technical, financial, and commercial dimensions - a pattern consistent with companies positioning for a larger scale-up financing round.
Key facts:
- $10 million Series A closed to develop low-cost direct air capture technology
- $1 million XPRIZE Milestone Award for novel DAC technology
- Multi-year carbon removal agreement secured with Shopify
- Stripe Climate expanded commitments to $15 million, adding Sustaera as one of four new portfolio companies
- Selected for Third Derivative's first cohort dedicated to carbon removal; Gates-backed fund also invested