Twelve
Our Investment in Twelve
Transforming carbon into fossil-free products
Carbon-based chemicals are the foundation of our modern world. Clothing, plastics, gasoline, and a long list of everyday products that surround us are created from this abundant element. But the process of refining fossil fuels to manufacture these items is unequivocally responsible for the rampant levels of CO2 emissions that drastically impact Earth’s climate. While reducing carbon emissions is certainly important, solutions that capture and recycle existing carbon at a large scale are necessary to address the issue in a meaningful way.
As we’ve previously shared, novel companies are converting captured-CO2 into high-value products like vodka, fragrance and fuels. In a similar fashion, Twelve is taking carbon from industrial manufacturers and transforming it into a range of products for the automotive, household, and apparel industries, as well as global tech companies and government entities. We’re excited to add Twelve to our growing portfolio of companies that are closing the loop on carbon, and back its founders in their mission of building a fossil-free future.
Twelve’s carbon transformation process
What is Twelve?
Twelve is a carbon transformation company using groundbreaking technology to transform CO2 into products that are normally made from petrochemicals. Their approach utilizes chemistry to decarbonize sectors that are particularly difficult, including cement, steel manufacturing, and glass manufacturing.
Twelve’s core technology works like industrial photosynthesis. By combining CO2 with water and electricity, their process breaks apart the molecules and uses catalysts to recombine the elements into new, more useful products. Each of their electrochemical reactors can convert the same amount of CO2 as 37,000 trees, all while fitting into a checked luggage. Twelve’s CO2Made® products range from jet fuel and car parts, to sunglasses and detergent.
Why did we invest?
Compelling Founder-Market Fit
Twelve Founding Team: (L-R) Dr. Kendra Kuhl, Nicholas Flanders, Dr. Etosha Cave
Twelve’s founding team are world leaders in their field. Dr. Kendra Kuhl is co-founder, CTO, and lead inventor of the company’s novel reactor design. She was the project lead for CO2 electroreduction during her PhD studies at Stanford University’s Jaramillo Group, a global leader in CO2 electrocatalysis. Dr. Etosha Cave serves as co-founder and CSO. She has over a decade of research experience in electrocatalysis engineering and design, plus a background spanning the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA. She also holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from Stanford, where she worked in the chemical engineering lab alongside Dr. Kuhl. Nicholas Flanders is a clean tech entrepreneur, and serves as co-founder and CEO of Twelve. He holds an M.S. in engineering and MBA from Stanford, with an extensive career in clean tech, including experience as a business analyst at McKinsey.
Twelve’s growing team of scientific, engineering and operational disciplines is headquartered in Berkeley, California and was recently named Fast Company’s #1 Most Innovative in Energy. The company just announced a $130 million Series B and additional funding to scale the engineering, manufacturing, and deployment of its carbon transformation technology to continue its mission.
Industrial-Scale Carbon Transformation
Twelve’s technology is designed for industrial scale. Their modular reactors can be dropped into existing supply chains and connected to any source of CO2 emissions, including direct air capture and direct source capture. Replacing fossil feedstocks with renewable carbon in this manner can avoid an estimated 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. We believe that the team’s transformation technology is poised to further the production of carbon-negative goods and the decarbonization of our atmosphere.
E-Jet, Twelve’s fossil-free jet fuel
The company’s business model has attracted an impressive lineup of current partners that showcase how Twelve’s technology can be applied to a diverse scope of industries from aviation to apparel. Mercedes-Benz, Procter & Gamble, Shopify, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force have all signed up to utilize Twelve’s unique technology to create CO2Made® products with zero trade offs. By doing so, these companies are not only addressing carbon-neutrality targets, but also reducing their emissions at scale.
