CTRL-S (Climate Tech Rescue, License, & Scale)

Preserving Innovation. Enabling Scale.

When climate tech companies fail, years of expensive R&D and valuable data get lost: deleted, abandoned, or destroyed. CTRL-S acquires that IP and makes it available to energy companies, industrials, and companies across adjacent sectors that can scale it and bring it to market.

Start a Conversation → How It Works

$2.3B+

Private capital invested in DAC since 2018

150+

DAC companies founded globally

12–24 mo

Window before knowledge decay accelerates

The Problem

Climate innovation is at an impasse. Not the science, the capital stack

Over $2.3 billion in private capital has been invested in DAC companies since 2018, yet CDR.fyi finds that only 0.05% of contracted credits have been delivered. Many DAC companies face acute financing pressure and may not bridge the commercialization valley of death. When they fail, their intellectual property, experimental data, and operational know-how vanishes, putting at risk the knowledge embedded in billions of dollars of public and private investment.

"The honeymoon is over. Investment and sales are falling, while deployments are delayed across almost every company."

CDR.fyi, Direct Air Capture Market Snapshot 2025

Startups Can't Scale Infrastructure Alone

Venture capital funds innovation, but is not meant to single-handedly finance and deploy capital-intensive infrastructure. The graduation rate from Seed to Series A has fallen by roughly half since 2022.

Bringing Together Disparate Innovations

The VC model creates proprietary competitors each protecting their unique approach and solution. Complementary technologies that could integrate may never connect because they sit inside separate companies with no mechanism to combine.

Knowledge Is Uniquely Vulnerable

DAC depends heavily on trade secrets and operational know-how that cannot be reverse-engineered once dispersed. When deep tech startups shut down, the vast majority of undocumented operational know-how is permanently lost.

How It Works

Acquire. Standardize. Benchmark. License.

CTRL-S acquires IP, data, and tacit knowledge from companies unable to commercialize before it disappears. Every asset is evaluated by a founding team with direct DAC and IP experience, then independently reviewed by an advisory network of leading DAC experts.

Acquire

IP, operational data, and tacit knowledge from DAC companies unable to commercialize. Structured as asset transfers with founder knowledge transfer sessions capturing undocumented know-how.

Standardize

Two-layer diligence: founding team evaluation, then independent expert review. Output: standardized benchmarks across performance, degradation, energy intensity, and failure modes.

Benchmark

Each acquisition feeds a growing comparable dataset: an independent DAC performance benchmark. Subscribers get intelligence on where technologies sit relative to each other. As the portfolio grows, the platform becomes more valuable.

License

Non-exclusive licensing by default, enabling cross-sector deployment. A sorbent chemistry licensed to an energy major for DAC doesn't conflict with licensing the same IP to a water treatment company.

How We Create Value

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Subscriptions

Annual corporate access to the CTRL-S repository: diligenced IP packages, performance benchmarks, and technical assessments for companies evaluating or developing carbon capture technology.

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Technology Licensing

Non-exclusive licensing across sectors. The same IP can serve DAC, industrial gas, water treatment, and other applications.

📈

Deployment Royalties

Long-term participation tied to real-world deployment of licensed technologies.

🧠

Data Partnerships

Structured experimental datasets, including negative learnings rarely found in academic literature, available to research institutions, industrial R&D teams, and AI materials science platforms.

Why Now

The time to act is now

Founders are already scattering, data is being deleted, and equipment is being scrapped. Preservation requires acting before the crisis peaks.

Supply Is Countercyclical

Over 40 venture-backed DAC companies raised $2.3B+ between 2018 and H1 2025. CDR.fyi concludes most will fold or be acquired. Series C deal counts hit an all-time low in 2025. Acquisitions made up 89% of all climate tech exits in 2025.

Compliance Markets Are Quietly Expanding

~63% of the Forbes Global 2000 now have net-zero targets. Japan's GX-ETS transitions to mandatory in FY 2026. The UK will integrate engineered CDR into its ETS by 2029. At least eight major compliance markets now allow some form of carbon removals.

Innovation Spillover Creates Cross-Sector Value

DAC operates at ~400 ppm CO₂, the hardest conditions in carbon capture. Technologies that underperform at DAC specs often excel in industrial gas separation, water treatment, and hydrogen production. Many assets can license across multiple markets.

Experimental Data Has Standalone Value

Materials science and industrial R&D teams are increasingly seeking real-world experimental data to complement computational models. Successful experimental data can feed into future work and designs. Failed experiments and negative learnings, rarely published in academic literature, are among the most valuable and scarcest inputs. CTRL-S recovers this data at dramatically lower cost than generating it from scratch.

Our thesis rests on three structural certainties

Physics Wins

Climate impacts compound. Action becomes inevitable regardless of political cycles.

Technology Improves

Human ingenuity and AI drive learning curves when knowledge is accessible.

Scale Requires Partnership

Durable climate action will be deployed when breakthrough innovation meets industrial-scale capital and infrastructure.

CTRL-S does not depend on DAC deployment to create value. Subscriptions serve companies evaluating carbon capture technology today. Licensing captures value across sectors, as DAC-developed IP can have cross-industry applications. Experimental data has standalone value to research and R&D buyers. Each revenue stream operates independently, making the model resilient by design.

Let's Talk →

Team

Built by the people who built the field

Jason Hochman

Founder & CEO

Co-founded and led the Direct Air Capture Coalition from zero to 110+ members across five continents, helping establish it as one of the field's leading convening platforms. Organized two Global DAC Conferences with Breakthrough Energy, RMI, and Columbia University, featuring Secretary John Kerry and Senator Bill Cassidy.

Bezos Earth Fund Greenhouse Gas Removal Ideation Prize Finalist and reviewer for the Fund's Roadmap. Former member of the U.S. Department of Commerce Environmental Technologies Trade Advisory Committee. Quoted in Forbes, Wired, Scientific American, Politico, and others. Speaker at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum, Africa Climate Summit, Carbon Unbound, and SXSW.

Previously led clean energy policy at Con Edison and supported climate initiatives at the U.S. Department of Defense. M.S. NYU (Honors with Distinction), B.A. Brown.

Nicole Williams

Founding IP Lead

Former IP Lead at Climeworks. 10+ years climate tech IP strategy. Led Climeworks' patent portfolio through scale-up.

Silvan Aeschlimann

Founding Diligence Lead

Former DAC Lead at RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute). Most recently advised Third Derivative accelerator on CDR portfolio. Co-author of RMI carbon removal roadmaps and electrochemistry research.

Advisors

Grant Faber

Former DOE DAC Hubs Program Manager

Phil De Luna, PhD

CURA CTO

Merritt Dailey

Carbon Direct Capital

Jack Andreasen Cavanaugh

Former Breakthrough Energy Carbon Policy Lead

Kelly Cummins

Former DOE OCED Director

Erik Funkhouser

Good Energy Collective

James Irungu Mwangi

Africa Climate Ventures CEO

Jacques Tohme

Samos Energy Chair; Amerocap Founder

Thomas McDonald

Co-Founder & CEO, Mosaic Materials (fmr)

Charithea Charalambous, PhD

Carbon Lead, Third Derivative

Get in Touch

Let's build climate IP infrastructure together

Whether you're a corporate buyer evaluating technology, an investor seeking countercyclical opportunity, a founder with IP to preserve, or someone who wants to join the team, we'd like to hear from you.

✉️

Email

info@ctrlsclimate.com

CTRL-S

Who we're looking for

CTRL-S is building a coalition of partners across the climate innovation ecosystem.

Corporate subscribers evaluating DAC and climate technology

Investors with conviction in countercyclical climate infrastructure

Founders with IP, data, or know-how to preserve and monetize

AI and materials science platforms, research institutions, and industrial R&D teams seeking structured experimental datasets

Builders ready to join the team

Express Interest →

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