Invest-NL has joined a €35.2m funding round for Carbeau, a Dutch startup converting CO2 into chemicals using electricity.
Carbeau is a spin-out from Avantium, the Amsterdam-listed renewable materials company. The name Carbeau combines "carbon" with "beau", reflecting the company's stated mission of "making carbon work beautifully". The technology platform was previously known as Volta Technology.
Invest-NL, the Dutch national promotional institution, invests alongside Austrian industrial process technology firm GKT, Oman-based Al Baleed Petrochemical, and NOM, the investment and development agency for the Northern Netherlands. Avantium retains a 32.7% stake in the new company.
Of the €35.2m total, €23.7m comes as cash from the external investors. The remaining €11.5m is a non-cash, in-kind contribution from Avantium.
Carbeau's platform uses electricity, preferably from renewable sources, to convert CO2 into chemical building blocks. The approach treats carbon emissions as a feedstock rather than a waste stream.
Its first products are glycolic acid, an ingredient widely used in skincare, and PLGA, a compostable plastic the company says offers strong barrier properties and marine degradability. Carbeau claims the products can be cost-competitive with fossil-based equivalents.
The company will be headquartered at the Amsterdam Science Park and is planning a pilot plant in Delfzijl, in the north of the Netherlands. The region has an established industrial and carbon capture and utilisation base.
"With €35.2m in funding and the backing of an outstanding consortium of strategic and financial partners, we are in a strong position to accelerate commercialisation and scale-up," said CEO Yap Chie Cheung.
Tom van Aken, CEO of Avantium, said the spin-out demonstrates the company's ability to develop technologies to a stage where they can attract external investment.
"The €35.2m financing and the strong consortium supporting Carbeau are a powerful endorsement of both the technology and the team behind it," he said.
The deal lands amid growing policy support for carbon utilisation in Europe.
The EU's Net Zero Industry Act, adopted in June 2024, set a legally binding target of 50 million tonnes of annual CO2 injection capacity by 2030, and the bloc's industrial carbon management strategy names CO2 utilisation as a pillar of its 2050 climate objectives.
The commercial prize is contested but potentially large. Carbon capture and utilisation technologies could use up to 27 gigatonnes of CO2 cumulatively by 2050, unlocking a $4.4tn economic opportunity, according to the World Economic Forum.
The spin-out took retrospective effect from 1 April 2026. Carbeau will be led by a management team drawn from technology development, scale-up and commercialisation backgrounds, the company says.