vaulted with capital

Houston company's sustainable spinoff launches with $8M in seed funding

Vaulted Deep, which diverts sludgy organic waste from landfills or waterways and captures and stores carbon emissions generated, is getting off the ground with $8 million from investors. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based Advantek Waste Management Services, which specializes in deep-injection wells that minimize the impact of land, air, and water waste, has launched a carbon removal and storage company.

The spinoff, Vaulted Deep, is getting off the ground with $8 million in seed funding.

Vaulted diverts sludgy organic waste, such as agricultural and livestock waste, before it’s dumped in a landfill or waterway or simply left on land to decompose. It then captures and stores carbon emissions generated by the organic waste.

A study published earlier this year by Louisiana State University ecologist Brian Snyder estimated that organic waste generates five gigatons of carbon dioxide per year. A gigaton equals one billion metric tons.

Vaulted is already off to an impressive start. For one thing, the startup has raised an $8 million seed round led by New York City-based carbon removal fund Lowercarbon Capital. Other investors include Advantek and San Francisco-based climatech VC fund Earthshot Ventures.

In addition, Vaulted has already nailed down purchase commitments from Frontier, a marketplace for buyers and sellers of carbon removal credits. Ryan Orbuch, a partner at Lowercarbon, is one of Frontier’s strategic advisers.

“Vaulted is literally cleaning up the planet, scaling field-proven injection terminology to safely dispose of harmful wastes like biosolids while permanently storing away millions of tons of CO2,” Orbuch says in a Vaulted news release.

While injection sequestration sites often take years to gain permits and start operating, Vaulted already boasts two permitted sites that are up and running. Vaulted offers carbon removal for $300 per ton, compared with more than $500 per ton charged by some competitors.

Advantek founder Omar Abou-Sayed is switching from CEO to chairman of Advantek, which launched in 1999, and will serve as executive chairman of Vaulted. Julia Reichelstein, a former investor at San Francisco-based climatech VC fund Piva Capital, has been tapped as CEO of Vaulted.

“Unlike many carbon removal technologies still in R&D, Vaulted’s technology and sites can safely and permanently store carbon underground, at scale, today,” says Abou-Sayed. “The early removals we will deliver are pivotal to keeping the window open to hold our planet’s warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

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A View From HETI

Houston-based Artemis, formerly Monalee, has closed its latest funding round. Rendering courtesy Artemis.

Houston tech startup Artemis has raised $6 million from 10 investors. The company offers an AI-supported platform that enables solar, battery storage and home improvement contractors to design, sell and finance energy projects.

Long Journey and Copec WIND Ventures co-led the round, with participation from angel investor Scott Banister, Coalition Operators, FJ Labs, Ludlow Ventures, Palm Tree Crew, Plug and Play Ventures, Shrug Capital and Tribeca Ventures.

To help propel growth, the company secured $10 million in financing last year (under its previous name, Monalee) from venture debt and growth credit provider Applied Real Intelligence. As Monalee, the company raised $16 million in venture capital.

The company was founded in 2022 as an installer of solar and battery storage projects. Five years later, the startup used in-house technology to establish its standalone software platform as it began pivoting away from installation. The company recently adopted the Artemis brand name.

Artemis says its platform saves time and money for installers of residential solar, battery storage, and energy projects. The platform combines an AI-powered design tool with embedded financing capabilities and compliance automation to create a single operating system.

The company says its customers report as much as a 72 percent reduction in software costs and up to 98 percent faster turnaround times. Thus far, more than 100 installers are using Artemis’ technology.

“Installers shouldn’t need six tools and a week of back-and-forth to sell a project," Walid Halty, co-founder and CEO of Artemis, said in a press release. “This funding gives us the fuel to scale our mission to compress design, financing, and compliance into a single flow so every installer can operate like a modern energy company. We’re not just speeding up deals, we're modernizing how distributed energy gets built.”

The Artemis platform, now available in the U.S. and soon to be launched in Latin America, caters to home improvement contractors, solar companies, lenders, and utilities.

“Artemis is transforming the complexity of distributed energy into elegant simplicity," added Arielle Zuckerberg, general partner at Long Journey.

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