Meet The Startup CEO Turning Carbon Cleanup Into A Major Investment Opportunity
November 12, 2025
London-based carbon emissions reduction startup CUR8 made news recently when it received seed funding from a source associated more with fuel-guzzling air travel than sustainability: Airbus Ventures, the venture capital arm of European multinational aerospace giant Airbus. Other investors included Google Ventures and CapitalT.
While perhaps not intuitive on the surface, Airbus Ventures’ investment in CUR8 shouldn’t surprise people acquainted with the net zero carbon emissions market, said CEO Marta Krupinska, a fintech veteran who co-founded CUR8 in 2022.
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Rather, it’s an early indicator of growing carbon removal market that Krupinska predicted will surpass a trillion dollars. To take advantage of that market, CUR8 developed CUR8 Plan. The software helps companies identify carbon removal projects and carbon offset credits that compliment their core businesses and also helps them articulate the business case for adopting a carbon removal and offset program.
Krupinska spoke with Benzinga about the net zero carbon emissions sector, the startups developing carbon reduction technologies, and how investors should approach this market.
BZ: What are the biggest challenges to the net zero carbon emissions industry?
MK: Carbon removal is a nascent emerging trillion-dollar industry but plagued with three main challenges: complexity, access and risk.
From a complexity perspective, it’s a new asset class. There are between 1,600 to 2,200 projects globally that remove carbon in 20 different ways, from growing trees to sucking carbon out of the sky. Understanding what good looks like and where to start is complex.
That translates into the access piece, which is how do you know where to find those projects? How do you even approach the issue of procuring those credits?
There is demand and interest, it’s just that corporates don’t really know how to move. This is why we released Cur8 Plan. Users can see different types of approaches, the projects, where they’re located geographically. They can better understand the asset class itself.
So, if I work at Sainsbury’s [the big UK retailer] and I want to pitch for budget to start buying carbon credits, it helps me understand how this sits within my broader sustainability strategy. Why it’s relevant for Sainsbury’s. What’s happening with UK net zero carbon emissions policy. When I’ll have to start buying it, and what the average prices would be. Therefore, how much the budget should be.
BZ: Can you discuss some of the climate solutions that already exist?
MK: We’ve had huge innovations in forestation that help us do measurement reporting and verification better, to prove the carbon was drawn down and that it’s going to stay drawn down. Tree planting on its own is fairly straightforward. This makes the market much higher integrity and higher quality.
In terms of readiness, there’s been a biochar market for 30 years-plus because it’s a fertilizer. You take waste biomass, for instance rice husks, and burn them in low oxygen environments at super high temperatures. You end up with this incredibly carbon-rich charcoal which you can put on your farmland to help with soil pH [potential hydrogen], and that contributes to better crop yields.
We also have more novel approaches. The one that everybody’s heard about is direct air capture, which are those fantastic sky hoover machines that filter in air and then separate CO2, then mineralize it and put it deep in geological storage.
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Another method that is still far-off from full development but that we are very excited about is storing carbon in oceans and rivers.
We need all those approaches because different ones are going to lend themselves differently to different geographies, climates, labor availability. Between them all I would say that the market is incredibly rich and there’s plenty of opportunities to invest in things that are very well understood and high quality.
BZ: What are some regulatory developments that could boost the net zero carbon emissions industry?
MK: There are a lot of policies already in flight. More than 80 percent of global GDP is covered by net zero regulations, either at the country or at the industry level.
In the United Kingdon, greenhouse gas removal methods are set to be included in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme from 2028-2029. The EU is looking at 2029-2030. Japan is launching their ETS inclusion next year. There is also progress in California and South Korea.
BZ: How do people make money from carbon removal and offsets?
MK: The money-making opportunity is in taking advantage of the net zero carbon regulations when they go into effect in the near future.
The case for saving money is fairly simple. Prices are going up right now. There are more suppliers than buyers. But that is slowly changing. For instance, the best biochar projects are on the verge of selling out. If you commit to purchasing now, you can lock in future access at today’s prices, because quite often these are long-term offtakes for carbon removal.
Because there are fewer buyers than suppliers, you can negotiate rights of first refusal, most favored nation pricing, which is why there are huge companies like Microsoft, Google, Airbus, Equinor, that are putting billions of dollars into carbon removal already even though those regulations aren’t in full force yet.
Another opportunity to make money is in financing this market. A lot of those projects need capital to deliver the credits to be able to sell them. So, we offered carbon offtake financing where we partner with banks to forward finance long-term offtakes for carbon removal.
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BZ: There’s been some blowback in recent years against climate change action – has that had an impact on your business?
MK: I would lie if I said there’s not been an impact. But more than 80 percent of U.S. CFOs say that they plan to either keep increasing or keep stable their budgets for climate action. Two out of the three investors on my board are American. In September, we announced the most recent fundraise and the majority of that capital came from the U.S.
Europe is seeing what’s happening in the U.S. as an opportunity to lead. There is lots of activity in Asia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Indonesia. Interestingly, we see a lot of U.S. investors taking a lot of interest in European climate startups because it is a better market to operate in if you’re in climate in 2025.
BZ: What are the relationships among net zero carbon emission startups like?
MK: I spent the first third of my career building fintech companies in London. All the companies that are unicorns today I remember were all in the same three buildings within a hundred yards of each other. And there was a lot of collaboration. I see the same thing in climate tech.
We are all together building coalitions to influence policymakers, to persuade corporates to collaborate on what best in class science means, to make sure there is accurate data out in the market. It’s in all our interests to collectively make a case that the market is growing. All of us believe the bigger the market the bigger the opportunity for all of us to build big businesses. Not to mention there’s undoubtedly going to be a lot of consolidation like in any nascent market.
BZ: What advice would you give to investors who want to invest in this space?
MK: Now is a perfect time to invest in climate tech because the reality is we’re no longer in the bubble there was two, three, four years ago when everyone was investing in climate. The bubble has moved to AI and defense. Climate valuations have stabilized. Now is a great time to invest in really well performing companies with very healthy valuations before the regulations kick in and those valuations balloon again because of market size.
Some time ago it was enough to raise money for 18 months. Now everyone is raising for 36 months. So, making sure that founders can capitalize their business, manage the cash, and make the most of all the efficiencies that AI is bringing us, and not hire too fast.
The companies in climate tech that are performing particularly well are the ones that can bring commercial expertise with scientific expertise.
Those are the perfect companies to be investing in 2025, 2026 before the market heats up again.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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