This Seattle-area startup just raised $600K to capture carbon and turn it into graphite

Sustainable tech startup Homeostasis is capturing carbon in a form that the world has too much of — atmospheric CO₂ gas — and transforming into a highly desired crystalline carbon called graphite.

The Seattle-area company today announced a $600,000 pre-seed investment round. In September, the Washington State Department of Commerce awarded the startup $700,000 from the state’s Climate Commitment Act.

Homeostasis is developing technology for removing carbon dioxide from the air using a process known as aqueous mineralization capture. The trapped carbon is then converted into graphite, which has industrial uses including battery manufacturing, nuclear power plants, steel production and defense applications.

Graphite is largely produced through mining and China dominates the supply chain. Both the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Defense have designated graphite as a critical mineral.

“CO₂ doesn’t have to be waste,” Julien Lombardi, Homeostasis’ co-founder and chief scientist, said in a statement. “We can strengthen our energy infrastructure by transforming excess carbon into an abundant feedstock.”

The startup is based in Tacoma, Wash., where engineering, fabrication and testing of the technology takes place, as well as its business operations. Homeostasis has partnered with the Clean Energy Testbeds at the University of Washington in developing the technology. It also has operations in New York where it is researching and characterizing its production of graphite.

The startup has developed a prototype device and aims to sign on customers for pilot project deployments later this year or early 2026.

The business plan for Homeostasis is to initially sell the systems to industrial customers seeking carbon removal technology. The startup would ultimately like to deploy the tech in its own facilities, either removing carbon from industrial sources or capturing it from the air.

The startup’s other co-founder is CEO Makoto Eyre. Eyre is an engineer who previously founded a carbon capture project, was a space architect for Blue Origin, studied neuroengineering and worked in traditional architecture.

Lombardi holds a doctorate degree in chemistry and has worked as a research scientist.

Homeostasis’ investors are the Minnesota-based Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, Kayak Ventures and angel investors.

Other Pacific Northwest startups pursuing carbon capture and carbon removal include CarbonQuest, Banyu Carbon, Svante Technologies, Ebb Carbon and Carbon Engineering, which was acquired by Occidental Petroleum in 2023.

The carbon and emissions technology space raised $12.2 billion from investors last year, down 40% from the previous year, according to PitchBook.

While the Trump administration’s hostile stance against climate technologies is creating uncertainty in the sector, Eyre said that graphite has essential industrial applications.

“The graphite market today is full of geopolitical risks, volatile supply availability and high prices,” he said. “The U.S. needs a reliable, domestic and affordable source of graphite. Our technology answers that call.”