At Carbon13, one of the most exciting parts of what we do is seeing founders turn bold ideas into impactful ventures. Cocoon shows what’s possible with our Venture Builder programme, where founders are matched with the right team, funding, and expertise. What started as a vision in our Venture Builder has, in just over two years, grown into a company closing a $15M Series A, ready to deploy its first commercial production facility in the US.
Solving the concrete supply problem
Concrete is the most widely used material on Earth after water, yet due to high energy, regulatory and labour costs, concrete production has fallen to its lowest level since the 1950s. Supply shortages are also being driven by reduced cement production, a key component of concrete. Cement depends on supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), such as fly ash from coal plants. However, these materials are becoming scarce as traditional sources, including coal plants and iron blast furnaces, are phased out across the U.S. and Europe.
Cocoon solves this by transforming underutilised steel slag from electric arc furnaces, a newer generation of steel production technology, into LoopCem™, a low-cost, high-performance cement replacement. Their rapid-cooling process integrates into existing mills to produce SCMs 100× faster than conventional methods while remaining capital-efficient, scalable, and low-carbon.
What's next?
So far, Cocoon moved from lab proof-of-concept to industrial scale pilots in under two years to demonstrate that their approach works reliably at scale while keeping costs low. They’ve already partnered with key steel producers to validate the technology to ensure the product is ready for commercial deployment.
This Series A funding will allow Cocoon to:
- Deploy their first small-scale commercial facility in the US (location TBC).
- Double their team with engineers, scientists, plant operators, and commercial talent in the UK and US.
- Scale the production of low-carbon cement substitutes to meet growing infrastructure demand. With cement consumption expected to rise to 20% by 2050, emission reductions are more urgent than ever.
the groundwork is set
2150 and The Venture Collective (TVC) have joined Cocoon as new investors, alongside continued support from Wireframe Ventures, Celsius Industries, Gigascale Capital, and SOSV.
Cocoon’s journey from TRL 3 to TRL 7 in just 18 months demonstrates that deeptech hardware can scale quickly. Ecological challenges can be met with rapid, real world solutions when backed by the right support.
We’re proud to have supported co-founders Eliot Brooks, Freddie Scott and William Knapp, and can’t wait to see the team light a fire to deliver meaningful, scalable change in the cement industry.
Thinking of creating the next Scaleable climate tech venture?
Both Carbon13’s Venture Builder and Venture Accelerator programmes are now open.
Either build a company from scratch with our Venture Builder programme that brings together 80 bright minds from the fields of technology, science and business to help them form teams, identify problem areas with significant potential for savings or reductions, and develop a climate tech startup in response.
Or join our Venture Accelerator programme that supports founding teams that have already created an early stage of software or deeptech/science-based startup. Work with us one on one to get investment support, industry knowledge and strategies for impact