This Welsh founder is taking on carbon capture – but warns industry can't rely on 'impatient' VCs
23 dec. 2024
06:00
Like many other UK startups, Nellie Technologies is developing a novel way of tackling carbon capture and storage. Unlike many startup founders, though, Stephen Milburn doesn’t want to rely on VC funding to help his Wales-based company expand. "This is a long-term business and you can’t do it with impatient capital," Milburn tells Impact Loop.
When Stephen Milburn built his first photobioreactor, he wasn’t planning on using it for carbon capture. Milburn had the idea of making biofuels from microalgae, before realising that the technology needed to turn that into a business just doesn’t exist.
So he repurposed his prototype and turned it into a direct air capture (DAC) system that uses the photosynthesis of microalgae to capture CO2 and then grow biomass that can be turned into biochar – which can store the carbon for a thousand years.