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

Chevron is in talks with Microsoft and Engine No. 1 about a massive natural gas power plant in Texas. Photo via Getty Images

Software giant Microsoft is negotiating exclusively with Houston-based oil and gas titan Chevron and investment firm Engine No. 1 about the development of a $7 billion power plant in West Texas that would supply electricity for a Microsoft data center campus.

The proposed natural-gas-fired plant initially would generate 2,500 megawatts of electricity, Bloomberg reports. The plant would be built near Pecos, a Permian Basin city, in an area where Microsoft plans to build a 2,500-megawatt data center campus on a 7,000-acre site.

A deal with Microsoft would secure a long-term customer for the plant’s output and help finance its construction, Bloomberg says. The project, expected to be producing power by 2030, still requires tax and environmental approvals as well an agreement to terms among Chevron, Engine No. 1, and Microsoft.

In a statement issued after Bloomberg reported the news, Chevron acknowledged it was in exclusive talks with Engine No. 1 and Microsoft, but the oil and gas company offered no details.

Chevron says the proposed plant “reflects an emerging shift in how power for AI is being developed, bringing energy supply closer to demand through co-located, behind-the-meter generation to deliver reliability while helping avoid added strain on regional electricity systems. It pairs sustained, always-on demand from advanced computing with proven capability to design, build, and operate large-scale energy infrastructure.”

Development of gas-powered electrical plants for AI data centers represents a new—and potentially lucrative— business line for Chevron. In 2025, Chevron, Engine No. 1 and GE Vernova announced a partnership to produce natural gas for AI data centers in the U.S.

Chevron’s collaboration with Engine No. 1 has already secured an order for seven large natural gas turbines from GE Vernova, according to Bloomberg.

“Energy is the key to America’s AI dominance,” Chris James, founder and chief investment officer of Engine No. 1, said last year. “By using abundant domestic natural gas to generate electricity directly connected to data centers, we can secure AI leadership, drive productivity gains across our economy, and restore America’s standing as an industrial superpower.”

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