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

Devon Energy will buy Houston-based Coterra Energy. Photo via Coterra Energy

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Devon Energy has agreed to buy Houston-based Coterra Energy in a $21.5 billion all-stock deal, forming an energy powerhouse that will be headquartered in Houston. The combined company, boasting an enterprise value of $58 billion, will adopt the Devon brand name.

Revenue for the two publicly traded companies totaled nearly $18.8 billion in the first nine months of 2025. Devon is a Fortune 500 company, but Coterra doesn’t appear in the most recent ranking.

The deal, already approved by the boards of both companies, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026. Once the transaction is completed, Devon shareholders will own about 54 percent of the combined company and Coterra shareholders will own 46 percent.

“This transformative merger combines two companies with proud histories and cultures of operational excellence, creating a premier shale operator,” says Clay Gaspar, Devon’s president and CEO.

The combined company will be one of the world’s largest shale producers, with third-quarter 2025 production exceeding 550 thousand barrels of oil per day and 4.3 billion cubic feet of gas per day. A significant presence in the Delaware Basin, encompassing hundreds of thousands of acres, will anchor the company’s operations. The 10,000-square-mile Delaware Basin is in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico.

The new Devon also will operate in the Permian Basin, located in West Texas and New Mexico; Marcellus Shale, located in five states in the East; and Anadarko Basin, located in the Texas Panhandle, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Gaspar will be president and CEO of the combined company, and Tom Jorden, chairman, president, and CEO of Coterra, will be non-executive chairman.

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