Düsseldorf-based Co-reactive secures €6.5 million to take concrete action to decarbonise the cement industry
Düsseldorf-based Co-reactive, a ClimateTech startup focused on decarbonising the construction industry at scale, has closed a Seed financing round totalling €6.5 million to scale its CO₂ mineralisation technology.
The round was led by HTGF, with participation from NRW.Bank, HBG Ventures, AFI Ventures (the early-stage impact arm of Ventech), Evercurious VC and a network of experienced climate tech business angels.
It has also received support through grants such as the Federal Funding for Industry and Climate (BIK) from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE).
Dr.-Ing. Andreas Bremen, co-founder and CEO of Co-reactive, commented, “With the right co-founders and an interdisciplinary team, we are taking CO₂ mineralisation from the lab into continuous industrial operation. The support of our financing partners, with the HTGF as lead investor, gives us the strength to deliver proof of performance with a 1,000-ton demonstration plant and to prepare large-scale deployment together with industry. We are building a solution that is urgently needed today so that it can create impact at industrial scale tomorrow.”
Co-reactive was founded in 2024 as a spin-off from RWTH Aachen University. After completing his PhD, Dr.-Ing. Bremen teamed up with his fellow student, Orlando Kleineberg and Willi Peter to establish Co-reactive.
The cement industry is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. According to Co-reactive, the cement production process releases substantial CO₂ from limestone, underscoring the need for solutions that can capture and utilise the resulting CO2.
This is where Co-reactive comes in. The company has developed a continuous process that converts CO₂, together with magnesium- or calcium-containing silicate minerals such as olivine or metallurgical slags (EAF & BOF), into performance-enhancing, CO₂-negative supplementary cementitious materials (CO-SCMs).
The German startup claims that the CO-SCMs have a negative CO₂ footprint and enable a significant reduction of the clinker content in cement and construction materials without compromising performance. The solution can be integrated into existing production processes as it’s designed as a drop-in technology.
“The construction industry is at a turning point: Conventional supplementary cementitious materials such as ground granulated blast furnace slag and fly ash are becoming scarce and expensive as decarbonisation progresses – prices for fly ash have in some cases quadrupled over the past two years. Co-reactive offers a scalable alternative that is not only CO₂-negative, but can also be integrated into existing processes as a drop-in solution. With strong unit economics and an experienced team of mineralisation and plant engineering experts, Co-reactive has the potential to transform the industry in a lasting way,” said Anna Stetter, Investment Manager, HTGF.
The company aims to use this fresh capital to scale its current lab and pilot operations in Q2 2026 to a continuous demonstration plant with a capacity of around 1,000 tons per year.
It is also working with industrial partners to prepare “first-of-a-kind” plants at the “tens-of-thousands-of-tons” scale. From 2027 onward, these facilities are intended to mineralise biogenic or process-related CO₂ streams directly on site at cement and steel plants.
Co-reactive collaborates across the value chain with CO₂ and raw material suppliers, cement and concrete producers, and certification bodies to scale from pilot plants to large industrial units in the 100- to 300-kilotons range. Its team has expertise in CO₂ mineralisation, plant engineering, commercialisation, and scaling sustainable tech.
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