One-pager Memo: Nova Carbon
Here's a brief overview of our latest investment, and why we're excited to back the team behind it.
Today, we announced our last investment into Nova Carbon’s pre-seed round. I thought it might be interesting to explain why we think this company is so important. A short one-pager format felt like a great way to do it, so I’m trying this out.
I'm particularly excited by this investment because it fits almost perfectly into our latest thesis. It brings a mix of core IP unlocking a defensible solution to a hard problem with negative climate externalities. It presents improved unit economics over the existing market standard. It's also hard tech-based, which makes it insanely cooler (see the end of the memo for some visuals).
After reviewing this memo, I hope you'll share my excitement for what the founders of Nova Carbon are building!
- Julien
Nova Carbon
Company: Nova Carbon
Website: https://www.nova-carbon.com/
Founders: Hugo Cartron, Vincent Gamboa
Stage: Pre-seed, $1.5M
Actionable highlights
A strategic material: Carbon fiber is a value-added material with ultra high performance (5x lighter than steel, stiffer than aluminum). It’s increasingly used across industries such as defense, aerospace, mobility, energy, and construction.
Developing the carbon recycling sector: Nova Carbon’s mission is to become the leading recycled carbon supplier. Their end-products deliver high performance, 4x-5x reusability, competitive pricing and compatibility with existing manufacturing processes.
Filling a technological opportunity: Nova Carbon has created a new fiber realignment process, aimed at maintaining most of the material’s original mechanical performance at a fraction of the price of virgin fiber.
A decade in the making: Nova Carbon is a spin-off from the European MANIFICA project, leveraging $2M of R&D, 2 patents and a prototype machine.
A gap material: The high performance and low costs of Nova Carbon’s recycled fiber unlocks new applications for carbon fiber, which was previously too expensive for many use cases. Its mechanical properties and price fit perfectly between virgin carbon fiber and aluminum / fiber glass.
The opportunity
Carbon fiber has quickly become the fastest-growing composite material, thanks to its fantastic weight/performance ratio.
Carbon-fiber products represent a $30Bn market, growing at a 10% CAGR. It is expected to reach $65Bn by 2030.
But its production process is very inefficient, leading to high waste and sub-optimized economic value.
10-30% of carbon fiber is wasted during the production phase, mostly from production chutes. It's already a 40,000-ton opportunity today.
There will be 2x to 5x more products reaching their end-of-life by 2030 due to the increased adoption of carbon fiber in the previous decade (~15 years lifetime). This alone could grow into an additional 60,000 tons to recycle.
95% of the carbon fiber waste is currently buried or burned. Only 5% gets a second life. Its mostly done through a mechanical process that yields a low-performance material. This material does not currently satisfy industrial clients.
There is a clear gap in the current recycling value-chain.
Over the last 10 years, most of the innovation around recycling has focused on the ‘separation’ phase. This is done by splitting the fiber from the resine.
The opportunity comes after this step. Existing solutions do not provide a high quality material.
Nova Carbon found a way to avoid the limits of mechanical recycling by realigning the fiber and preserving its length.
Future applications of this method could go beyond just carbon fiber.
There are catalysts at the legislative level pushing industrial composite producers and consumers to look at recycling.
Carbon fiber is 20x more CO2 intensive than steel, due to a highly energy-intensive 'carbonization' process.
New laws and decrees are pushing for a reduction of landfill and incineration, such as the Energy Transition for Green Growth Act, Extended Producer Responsibility Act, and National Waste Prevention plan.
Cost of externalities: Failure to meet those targets will lead to financial penalties for carbon fiber manufacturers.
Founded in 2023, Nova Carbon leverages 10 years of R&D to scale a new recycling process for carbon fiber. Their IP unlocks improved mechanical performance by preserving the fiber’s length, at a competitive price, and can be scaled effectively using off-the-shelf parts.
Momentum
Development of a first realignment machine ; first patent filed, I2M, University of
Bordeaux. Funded by Airbus, Safran, EADS and ADEME. Also funded by the European Union (Clean Sky 2) through the MANIFICA Recycling project.
Industry recognition: Startup Booster finalists at the JEC World 2023, 1st prize “Bordeaux techno-west sustainable buildings and cities competition”.
First contract signed with a carbon fiber manufacturer. Multiple requests for collection and recycling in France and Europe.
Core team of 4 assembled to expand on the original IP, with clear line of sight on next hires.
Team
The first time I met Hugo, he showed up with a meter-long “stick” of recycled carbon fiber in the middle of a restaurant. What stroke me about this first meeting was how laser-focused and clear minded he was. The kind of intentionality that led him to meet Vincent at a composite recycling conference, months prior to launching Nova Carbon officially.
Hugo Cartron is a materials engineer trained at the École Centrale de Nantes and Imperial College, where he studied composite systems. He later joined Dassault to run a year-long materials study project. In 2019, Hugo joined Safran's LEAP engine team to focus on aerodynamics and composite materials. After two years at Safran, Hugo decided to leave the company to join an accelerator. He spent close to two years researching all the innovations in carbon recycling to find the right approach. This is how he encountered both the MANIFICA project and his co-founder.
Vincent Gamboa founded Sports Carbon and served as its manager for 10 years. His company operated as a repair provider for carbon bicycles. Repairs is one of the 3 core pillars of carbon recycling (besides reuse and recycling). After finding a new leadership for SC, Vincent decided to join Hugo full-time to tackle the recycling opportunity.
What’s next
The pre-seed fundraise is designed to achieve both technological and logistical maturity for a pilot plant. Hugo and Vincent’s objective is to commercialize a first product from their pilot plant, a carbon fiber tape.
During that process, Nova Carbon will seek to secure enough carbon waste supply to reach an industrial scale.
They will also hire the core team to industrialize the recycling process.
And on a last note, Nova Carbon’s products look insanely cool:
