Finances membrane capture at industrial sites and earns only when delivered CO₂ meets a carbonate buyer’s feedstock spec.

1. UniSieve announced a $9M Series A to scale existing applications and broader industrial deployment, while describing its membranes as pre-commercial for point-source carbon capture; the operating claims are company-reported.
2. Trade-press reporting says Qemetica has begun a live test and plans to use captured CO₂ onsite for carbonate production, providing a specific demand-side use case but not proof of repeatable commercial economics.
3. UniSieve describes containerized cement-site designs, including smaller 5,000–30,000 tonne-per-year units under design for demonstrations and early applications; these are planned configurations, not demonstrated production.

Catalyst. UniSieve's $9M Series A and its reported pre-commercial manufacturing readiness coincide with trade-press reporting of Qemetica's live test and planned onsite carbonate use; the combination suggests a near-term demonstration window, not yet proven commercial demand.

The company first screens an industrial host's exhaust, site constraints, and carbonate buyer's required composition and delivery profile; it declines projects without a credible onsite use and signed demand. It finances, installs, and operates a modular membrane skid sourced from a qualified membrane manufacturer, measuring accepted CO₂ at the buyer's transfer point rather than relying on nameplate capacity. The host pays a development or availability fee plus a per-tonne service charge only for CO₂ that meets the agreed specification, while the buyer separately contracts for the captured feedstock. Initial projects use independent commissioning and measurement to test performance and economics before the company finances a wider fleet.

What's different. Membrane vendors sell separation technology, while this company sells a contracted outcome at the point where captured gas becomes a usable industrial input. It commits capital only after matching a host to an offtaker and links its fee to independent product acceptance, not a capture-rate estimate; it does not depend on carbon-credit revenue in its initial project economics.

Jobs to be done

flowchart LR
  Host[Industrial host and exhaust] --> Skid[Financed membrane skid]
  Skid --> Meter[Metered CO₂ quality and quantity]
  Meter --> Buyer[On-site carbonate buyer accepts feedstock]
  Buyer --> Fee[Per-accepted-tonne service payment]
  Fee --> Skid

Executive takeaways

• The industrial decarbonisation pain is real and increasingly funded, but available evidence points mainly to large, grant-supported CCS projects—not proven willingness to pay for this exact accepted-tonne service.
• The mechanism has a live analogue: UniSieve and Qemetica are testing membrane capture with intended onsite carbonate use. No public report establishes repeat orders, buyer acceptance terms, or project economics.
• Novelty is narrow and conditional: tying project capital and operating fees to CO2 accepted by a named offtaker may be distinctive, but generic modular capture and third-party capture services already exist.
• Size the opportunity in tonnes per year until service prices, capture costs, and the number of qualifying source–buyer pairs are validated; a dollar TAM would imply unsupported pricing.
• Adoption depends on gas fit, quality/continuity guarantees, regulatory treatment of CO2 utilization, capital access, and a buyer willing to contract rather than simply continue established feedstock supply.

Market definition

The market is a financed and operated industrial CO2 capture service whose billable unit is CO2 delivered at a carbonate user's transfer point and accepted against a site-specific quality and continuity specification. The physical TAM below is a theoretical European cement capture-capacity ceiling, not a revenue forecast; SAM narrows to estimated local source–carbonate pairs and SOM to initial demonstration deployments. Public evidence does not reveal a defensible per-tonne service price, so dollar values are intentionally not asserted.

Customer and buyer

The industrial host's plant manager, decarbonisation lead, or CFO is the likely project sponsor and service payer; procurement and process engineering assess integration and uptime. A carbonate producer or onsite process owner is the separate offtaker with authority over CO2 acceptance. The project therefore has at least two decision makers, a shared measurement boundary, and a need to contract for specification, continuity, rejection, downtime, and liability before equipment financing can be underwritten.

Buying triggers

• EU ETS benchmarks are set against best-performing installations and signal pressure to improve greenhouse-gas and fuel efficiency, creating a decarbonisation trigger without proving any particular capture project's payback. [5]
• The EU Innovation Fund and industrial carbon management portfolio provide a visible grant route for capital-intensive projects; such grants demonstrate budget availability but also suggest early projects rely on public support. [4][7][8]
• A plant approving a capture demonstration while a nearby carbonate operation needs a reliable input is the strongest hypothesised trigger; Qemetica is a reported test case, not evidence of a repeat commercial purchase. [1][2]

Willingness to pay

Industrial carbon capture is budgeted at project scale: the EU maintains a multi-billion-euro Innovation Fund, and Yara's operating Sluiskil CCS project is expected to capture up to 800,000 tonnes annually with cross-border transport and storage. LeadIT's cement-sector review reports that Brevik relied on government funding covering more than 80% of capital costs. These signals support public and strategic willingness to fund emissions reduction, not a proven willingness by a carbonate buyer to pay a premium or by a host to sign an acceptance-linked service contract. Trade coverage says UniSieve has paying customers but does not establish that those are carbon-capture customers or disclose their terms. [1][8][9][10][15]

Category dynamics

Validation signals

• Qemetica Soda Polska is reported to have started live testing a UniSieve membrane unit with onsite carbonate production as the intended use; this validates technical-customer interest, not commercial offtake.
• UniSieve describes pre-commercial maturity and gives demonstration and container capacities, but its operating and cartridge-life statements are company claims.
• EU funding and the operating Yara Sluiskil project establish that significant industrial capture budgets and public-private project structures exist, especially for storage-linked projects.
• LeadIT's review of cement projects links deployment to public finance and transport/storage infrastructure, and reports a large gap between projects planned and the sector's total emissions.

Regulatory & technical constraints

• The EU CCS Directive requires a permit and safety framework for geological storage, including monitoring and financial security; any storage route adds national permitting and transport dependencies.
• The Commission's ETS description links allowance relief to CO2 successfully captured and stored. Do not assume that every CO2-to-carbonate use qualifies for equivalent treatment; confirm product permanence, monitoring, and emissions accounting with counsel.
• Industry CO2-chain guidance explains that impurities can affect capture, transport, corrosion, blockages, and economics, so quality and conditioning limits must be set across the full chain rather than inferred from a nominal purity figure.
• UniSieve's cement design depends on upstream filtration and later water removal; dust, moisture, pressure, feed variation, and membrane life need plant-specific validation.
• Cross-border storage and infrastructure are active but not universally available; a project relying on them must confirm route, access, permits, and schedule before committing capture capital.

The offer sits between capture technology vendors, project/EPC providers, industrial operators building their own systems, and conventional CO2 supply. UniSieve–Qemetica demonstrates that capture can be paired with onsite carbonate production, while Carbon Clean sells modular solvent-based capture systems. Larger project pathways such as Yara Sluiskil and Brevik CCS capture and route CO2 to geological storage. These are not all direct substitutes for local carbonate feedstock, but they compete for site capital, engineering attention, decarbonisation budgets, and the option to avoid or outsource capture. No public competitor contract reviewed here shows the exact combination of project financing, membrane operation, and host payment solely for buyer-accepted CO2.

Why incumbents do not win by default

• Capture technology vendors and modular system suppliers. They provide equipment and engineering for capture, but a host may still have to finance the retrofit, arrange product conditioning, and negotiate a separate use or storage route. The gap is an unbundled project-and-offtake problem, not proof that vendors cannot offer financing.
• Large CCS developers, EPCs, and storage networks. They have operating references and can win when permanent storage, public support, and shared transport are available. They do not automatically solve a local carbonate buyer's acceptance specification, and their scale and infrastructure needs can be disproportionate for a small onsite-use pair.
• Plant-owned capture and internal engineering. The host controls site operations and can integrate capture with its own process, but must absorb engineering, capital, reliability, and buyer-quality risks. A service provider only wins if it lowers total risk enough to offset financing costs and the host's control preference.
• Conventional CO2 feedstock and the status quo. Established supply avoids retrofit disruption and already meets the buyer's process needs; absent a quantified price, reliability, or compliance advantage, a buyer can rationally keep buying conventional feedstock and decline the project.

Build a financed-and-operated capture service for European industrial hosts whose CO₂ can be used directly in an onsite carbonate process; bill only for independently metered CO₂ accepted by the buyer, not installed capacity. Start with one jointly qualified host–offtaker pair, prioritizing Poland because Qemetica has a reported live test there, but do not treat Qemetica as an available customer or the test as a commercial contract. The economic buyer is the host's plant general manager or CFO, while the carbonate process owner must define and accept the feedstock specification before equipment is financed. Research supports a tangible local-use pilot and active industrial capture funding, but reports no accepted-tonne service contract, buyer specification, repeat order, or independently verified operating economics. The closest analogue already pairs UniSieve membranes with Qemetica's intended onsite carbonate use; differentiation must therefore come from bankable contracting, operations, and measurement rather than claiming a novel capture technology or source–buyer pairing. The researched European throughput TAM, SAM, and SOM are screening estimates in tonnes per year, not verified addressable volume or a dollar revenue market. A pre-seed round funds 18 months of buyer qualification, site engineering, independent testing, and a gated first demonstration; it does not assume full-fleet equipment financing or carbon-credit revenue. Investment conviction stays low until one buyer commits to a quality and volume specification, a real stream passes independent acceptance tests, and a quote-based project case works without unverified ETS treatment or a CO₂ premium.

Problem

• An industrial host considering capture must fund and integrate equipment, while the carbonate buyer needs reliable composition, continuity, and rejection rules before replacing conventional CO₂ supply.
• A supplier's design capacity or capture-rate estimate does not establish accepted tonnes, uptime, energy use, replacement cost, or cost per usable tonne on a specific exhaust stream.
• Without a named local user and a contracted acceptance point, the host retains retrofit and offtake risk and the buyer can rationally keep its established feedstock source.

Solution

• Qualify the host exhaust, site layout, utility needs, and carbonate process demand together; decline projects without a defined buyer, buyer-approved specification, and credible volume commitment.
• After conditional host and offtaker commitments, procure a suitable modular capture skid from a qualified supplier, arrange site integration, and contract independent measurement at the buyer's transfer point.
• Charge development and commissioning fees plus a service fee per accepted tonne; defer any availability floor until pilot uptime is demonstrated and do not rely on carbon-credit revenue in the initial case.

Why we win

• The proposed product joins project development, financing, operation, and buyer acceptance in one contract; the value is shifting performance risk away from the host, not inventing membranes or local carbonate use.
• Repeated source-gas, uptime, quality, rejection, and cost data could make underwriting and service guarantees more reliable, but this is a moat to build only after paid deployments, not an existing advantage.
• A membrane vendor, EPC, plant team, or conventional CO₂ supplier can win by default if it offers lower delivered cost, simpler liability, or the same acceptance-linked service; the first sale must prove customers value the integrated contract.

Milestones

flowchart LR
  Pair[Matched host and carbonate buyer] --> Gate[Buyer spec and conditional demand]
  Gate --> Pilot[Metered membrane demonstration]
  Pilot --> Proof[Accepted tonnes and no-credit economics]
  Proof --> Repeat[Project-financed repeat site]

Founding team

Experiment roadmap

Risk assessment

What must be true

• At least one host and carbonate buyer sign a conditional agreement with a measurable CO₂ specification, minimum-volume profile, acceptance point, and rejection rules within 12 months.
• An independent 90-day test on real exhaust achieves at least 80% buyer acceptance of captured tonnes and at least 85% uptime, or a revised performance threshold is agreed before any service guarantee.
• Vendor-quoted CAPEX, energy, maintenance, replacements, and financing support positive site-level contribution at a fee the host and buyer can support without assumed carbon credits or ETS relief.
• A bottom-up European site review confirms at least 5 pairs with technically compatible exhaust, identifiable carbonate demand, and accessible decision-makers; the current 5–15 pair range is only an operator screen.
• After the first accepted-output dataset, at least one project-finance or grant-backed structure can fund a repeat installation without requiring the operating company to carry the full fleet capex.

Open diligence questions

• What specification, annual and seasonal volume, rejection rights, and price would the first carbonate buyer contract for, compared with its current conventional CO₂ supply?
• What independently measured gas composition, recovery, purity, uptime, energy draw, pretreatment, fouling, and cartridge life apply to the target host stream?
• What are the supplier-quoted installed CAPEX, operating cost, module replacement, and financing requirements, and who bears performance and interruption liability?
• Does the proposed carbonate product and downstream fate receive any specific emissions-accounting treatment, or does the project work without ETS relief, credits, or permanence claims?
• How many European source–carbonate pairs meet site, demand, gas-fit, permitting, and distance criteria after plant-level verification?
• What grant, host-capital, and project-finance terms are available for the first and second installations, and what equity remains at risk?

Model sanity

• Revenue engine. One qualified project is modeled at 10,000 accepted tonnes per year and USD 60 per tonne for USD 600K annual ARPU, while the second project contributes only in Q4Y3.
• Must go right. A buyer must sign minimum-volume and quality terms, the test must reach 80% acceptance and 85% uptime, and each USD 3.0M asset must close its uncommitted 50% host/grant, 40% project-debt, and 10% sponsor stack.
• Model breaks if. A 20% payroll overrun reduces modeled three-year cash by USD 312K, while a 25% accepted-output shortfall cuts Y3 revenue by USD 187.5K and cumulative cash by USD 165K.
• Next-round proof. The next financing requires an independently witnessed 90-day test with at least 80% buyer acceptance and 85% uptime plus positive first-site contribution after approximately USD 179K annual project debt service, before a repeat-site commitment.

Scenarios

Sensitivity

flowchart LR
  Pair[Qualified host and carbonate buyer] --> Gate[Buyer spec and conditional volume]
  Gate --> Asset[Project-financed membrane asset]
  Asset --> Meter[Independent measurement]
  Meter --> Accepted[Accepted CO2 tonnes]
  Accepted --> Revenue[Service fee revenue]
  Revenue --> Margin[Gross profit after site costs]
  Margin --> Cash[Corporate cash after project debt service]

Flags: No accepted-tonne service price, installed CAPEX, project debt terms, energy requirement, or direct operating cost is publicly validated; modeled unit economics are planning assumptions, not observed evidence. · The reported Qemetica test is an analogue only; no paying contract, signed offtake, or customer access is assumed. · Host/grant capital and project debt are uncommitted; if either asset stack fails, the company must delay equipment orders rather than fund fleet CAPEX from the corporate round. · The base case has only USD 569.5K cash at Y3 end before taxes, working capital, and contingencies; secure a follow-on or project capital before the repeat-site close. · The Y3 rule-of-40 proxy is -69.0% and revenue per year-end FTE is USD 125K; scale is too early to support a mature SaaS efficiency comparison.

• Membrane performance. Real exhaust variation, uptime, or product quality may prevent the skid from consistently meeting a carbonate buyer's acceptance specification. Mitigation: Commission at demonstration scale, use independent gas measurement, and make service payments conditional on accepted output rather than design estimates.
• Scarce local offtake. Few sites may combine a suitable exhaust stream with enough onsite carbonate demand, limiting repeatable project volume. Mitigation: Require a buyer specification and minimum demand commitment before equipment financing, and reject unmatched sites instead of building speculative capacity.
• Capital and project risk. Financing, installation delays, or operating costs may exceed the margin available from accepted CO₂ service fees. Mitigation: Stage capital against commissioning gates, secure host service commitments, and underwrite early projects without assuming unverified carbon-credit income.