CarbonQuest Inc., a clean tech company headquartered in Spokane Valley, plans to double its staff in the next year and expand on three areas of technology, says company president and CEO Shane Johnson. 

The anticipated growth comes on the heels of the company's first round of Series A funding, which was completed in August. Johnson declines to disclose details about the capital raised except to say that the Series A funding from Riverbend Energy Group, an energy investment firm based in Houston, Texas, has been completed. More potential funding opportunities are still in the works. 

According to Seattle-based PitchBook Data Inc., Riverbend Energy Group invested about $36 million in CarbonQuest.

CarbonQuest currently employs about 30 people companywide and expects to fill positions in research and development, product development, and market development sales, doubling its staff in 2025 to about 60 people, Johnson says.

“We are at a growth inflection point,” Johnson says. “The funds are fuel to support that growth.” 

As part of the Series A funding, Joe Passanante and Eric Danzinger, managing directors from Riverbend Energy Group, will join CarbonQuest’s board of directors. 

Johnson says the investment from Riverbend comes with ownership stakes into CarbonQuest, and the board of director roles given to Riverbend will oversee the company’s governance. 

Dave Curry, chairman of the CarbonQuest board of directors, says in a press release that the partnership with Riverbend allows the company to scale faster and take on more clients. 

“We see more and more opportunities for distributed capture every day, ranging from traditional hard-to-abate sectors to new and existing onsite distributed power that we can now couple with distributed carbon capture to offer low carbon and resilient onsite power,” Curry says. 

CarbonQuest’s technology is designed to capture, separate, liquify, and store carbon emissions from large buildings, preventing them from being released into the atmosphere. The liquified CO2, dubbed “Sustainable CO2,” is currently injected as an ingredient into concrete blocks to be sold later and used for construction. 

The circular model allows building owners to reduce their carbon footprint, improve energy efficiency, meet environmental regulations, and create healthier living conditions. It launched its first fully operational onsite system in New York City in 2022 and since then has added clients throughout the Northeast, Midwest, West, and Canada, says Johnson. 

“We are one of the few carbon-capture companies with commercial products on the market today, and this investment will help us to continue bringing distributed carbon capture to a wider swath of the market,” he says. “We are also excited to attract new talent and expand our North American operations.” 

The infusion of funds will help CarbonQuest offer its Distributed Carbon Capture technology into new market segments, including biogenic sources of CO2, utility infrastructure, and other hard-to-abate facilities. The company also expects to expand its relationships in the CO2 utilization and sequestration space to help manage end-to-end emissions better and advance the development of its Carbon Management Software, a program that provides real-time data and analytics to track the capture of the CO2 and its delivery to customers. 

Johnson says the company will roll out a fourth-generation model of its technology in 2025, as well as increase the scale of its technology in order to take on larger projects. 

CarbonQuest was founded in 2020 by a group of Spokane-area environmental technology entrepreneurs with the vision to solve decarbonization across the industrial market segment and the built environment. The company is located at 3010 N. First, just south of the Spokane Business & Industrial Park, in Spokane Valley, and has additional offices in Seattle, New York City, and Washington D.C. 

As reported by the Journal, many of CarbonQuest's founders had been behind Demand Energy Networks Inc., a Liberty Lake-based energy storage company that had also landed contracts with New York City building owners, who are now CarbonQuest clients. Demand Energy was acquired in 2017 by Enel S.p.A, an Italian gas and electricity distributor. 

In 2020, the commercial and industrial sectors accounted for a combined 31% of U.S. greenhouse emissions, according to a report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The same report also stated that CO2 made up 79% of U.S. greenhouse emissions. 

Last month, Johnson was named Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2024 Evening of Excellence Awards Gala in Seattle. The Association of Washington Business organized the event to celebrate the state of Washington’s leading manufacturers and employers. The Entrepreneur of the Year award highlights a local business that is less than 5 years old and is making a significant impact on its industry.