In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with Marian Krüger, Co-founder and Managing Director of remove, the non-profit accelerator that has backed 209 carbon removal startups since its first cohort in 2021. It is the first episode in the Scoop's new partnership with remove, and Marian brings a rare view of what founders are building across Europe, India, Africa and Latin America, and why remove never went to North America.
Application numbers have fallen since the climate tech peak, but Marian argues the founders who remain are stronger for it. He explains why founders today rarely claim a brand new pathway and instead set out to do an existing one better, how the value chain is splitting into specialists, and why so many Global South startups are building biochar. In India and Africa, he says, none of remove's startups lead with climate: farmer prosperity, adaptation and air quality open the doors.
Eve and Sebastian then press on money and policy. Marian walks through how remove moved from pure grants to recoverable grants to EUR 15,000 pre-purchases, and what a first listed deal on CDR.fyi does for a startup's next conversation. On Europe, he describes DAC and BECCS startups reorienting deployments towards Europe to qualify under the EU ETS proposal, and warns that rules or methodologies that are too narrow risk closing off the optimisation still possible within today's pathways.
They close on the strangest ideas to cross remove's desk, from a military waste technology repurposed for wet biomass to a WhatsApp voice tool for farmers, and on the power imbalance between founders in the Global South and buyers in the North. Tune in to hear Marian's countercyclical case for why right now might be the best time to found a carbon removal company.