Yama Carbon

Cover Block

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Company Name	Yama Carbon
Tagline	Developing direct air capture technology using a hybrid electrochemical process for low energy CO2 removal.
Headquarters	Paris, France
Founded	2023
Stage	Seed
Business Model	B2B
Industry	Cleantech / Climatetech
Technology	Hardware
Geography	Western Europe
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Solo Founder
Funding Label	$3M Seed (total disclosed ~$3,000,000) [Crunchbase, July 2024]

Links

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• Website: https://yamacarbon.com

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by company website and multiple external sources.

Executive Summary

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Yama Carbon is a Paris-based direct air capture (DAC) startup engineering a hybrid electrochemical process designed for low energy consumption and rapid deployment, a proposition that merits investor attention for its focus on industrial practicality over laboratory novelty [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. Founded in 2023 by Yama Saraj, an entrepreneur and social activist born in Afghanistan and raised in the Netherlands, the company aims to bring a diversity of perspective to the French climatetech ecosystem [Startups Without Borders, retrieved 2024]. Its core technology repurposes electrodialysis hardware from water treatment, using pH changes and low-grade heat to capture and release CO₂, a design choice intended to minimize bespoke components and use existing supply chains [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. The company has secured a reported $3 million in seed funding, though investor names are not publicly disclosed, and operates a B2B model targeting industrial emitters and corporate buyers of carbon removal credits [Crunchbase, July 2024]. Over the next 12-18 months, the key milestones to watch are the progression along its published roadmap, which calls for a 365-tonne demonstration plant, followed by a 5,000-tonne facility, as validation of its scaling claims and industrial integration thesis [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core technology claims are corroborated by industry profiles, but funding details and team composition lack multiple independent sources.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Classification
Stage	Seed
Business Model	B2B
Industry / Vertical	Cleantech / Climatetech
Technology Type	Hardware
Geography	Western Europe
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Solo Founder
Funding	$3M Seed (total disclosed ~$3,000,000)

Company Overview

PUBLIC

Yama Carbon is a Paris-based direct air capture (DAC) hardware startup founded in 2023 by Yama Saraj [Crunchbase, retrieved 2024]. The company's origin story is tied to its founder's personal background and a pragmatic approach to climate technology. Saraj, born in Afghanistan and raised in the Netherlands, is described as an entrepreneur and social activist who aims to bring more diversity into the French startup ecosystem [Startups Without Borders, retrieved 2024] [Life Line, retrieved 2026]. The company's public narrative frames its mission not just as a technical challenge but as a social and economic one, with Saraj discussing leveraging technology to solve socioeconomic challenges [Yama Saraj YouTube, retrieved 2026].

Key operational milestones are centered on technology development and scaling. The company reported scaling its system 56x in one year, moving from a lab setup to establishing the first-ever French DAC pilot plant [Yama Carbon, retrieved 2024]. Its participation in climate technology accelerators, including Third Derivative and Remove, provides external validation and structured support for its development roadmap [Third Derivative, retrieved 2024].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Company founding and founder background confirmed by multiple sources; accelerator participation and pilot plant claim are company-sourced.

Product and Technology

MIXED

Yama Carbon's core innovation is a direct air capture system that prioritizes industrial manufacturability over novel chemistry. The technology is a hybrid electrochemical process that captures CO₂ from ambient air using pH changes and low-grade heat, a method designed to keep energy consumption low [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. The system's architecture is built around electrodialysis, a technique repurposed from established water treatment and desalination industries [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. This choice is a deliberate wedge, allowing the company to source mass-manufactured components and rely on familiar industrial processes rather than developing bespoke, one-off plants [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024].

The company claims specific performance improvements from integrating its electrochemical approach with other systems. According to accelerator Third Derivative, pairing high-efficiency air source heat pumps with the electrochemical DAC process decreases energy consumption by 30% and capital intensity by 10% compared to standalone electrochemical technologies [Third Derivative, retrieved 2026]. Other cited design features include using low-temperature heat pumps and ambient heat to achieve desorption at temperatures below 100°C, and integrating an absorption fan to reduce water consumption by 50% [Third Derivative, retrieved 2024]. The company has demonstrated rapid technical scaling, reporting a 56x scale-up of its system in one year, moving from lab work to establishing the first-ever French DAC pilot plant [Yama Carbon, retrieved 2024].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core technology claims are corroborated by multiple independent profiles, but specific performance metrics are primarily sourced from the company's accelerator profile.

Market Research

MIXED The market for durable carbon dioxide removal is transitioning from a niche for voluntary corporate pledges to a component of industrial decarbonization and compliance frameworks, creating a near-term window for scalable, cost-competitive technologies. The primary demand driver is the growing corporate and governmental commitment to net-zero targets, which cannot be met through emissions reductions alone for hard-to-abate sectors like aviation, shipping, and cement. A secondary driver is the maturation of carbon credit marketplaces and methodologies that increasingly distinguish between avoidance, reduction, and high-durability removal, with a premium placed on the latter [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. Regulatory tailwinds include the EU's Carbon Removal Certification Framework and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which are establishing rules for international carbon trading and could formalize demand for removal credits.

The total addressable market is often framed by the volume of carbon removal required to meet global climate goals. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C typically require the removal of 5 to 16 gigatonnes of CO₂ annually by 2050, representing a multi-trillion-dollar cumulative addressable market [IPCC, 2022]. The serviceable obtainable market for engineered solutions like direct air capture is more constrained by current policy support and cost. Analysts at BloombergNEF estimated the market for carbon removal credits could reach $1.1 trillion annually by 2050 under a net-zero scenario, with DAC potentially capturing a significant share as costs fall [BloombergNEF, 2023].

Adjacent and substitute markets influence the competitive landscape. Industrial point-source capture represents a larger, nearer-term market for carbon capture technology, but it does not achieve negative emissions. Nature-based solutions like afforestation and soil carbon sequestration currently command a larger share of the voluntary carbon market due to lower costs, but they face challenges with permanence, verification, and land use. The key substitution risk for DAC is the potential for other engineered removal pathways, such as enhanced weathering or ocean alkalinity enhancement, to achieve lower levelized costs at scale.

Demonstration Plant (Roadmap) | 365 | tonnes CO₂/year
Pilot Facility (Roadmap) | 5000 | tonnes CO₂/year
Commercial Plant (Roadmap, ~2030) | 50000 | tonnes CO₂/year

Yama Carbon's published roadmap, which targets a 50,000-tonne annual capacity plant by around 2030, illustrates the scaling challenge [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. This target volume, while substantial for a first commercial project, represents a minuscule fraction of the multi-gigatonne annual removal need, highlighting that market adoption will depend on replicating such facilities hundreds of times over. The progression from hundreds to tens of thousands of tonnes also frames the capital intensity and project finance hurdles the sector must overcome.

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Market context and regulatory drivers are established by third-party reports from the IPCC and BloombergNEF. Yama's specific capacity roadmap is confirmed by a detailed third-party profile.

Competitive Landscape

MIXED Yama Carbon enters a direct air capture market defined by a clear split between established, high-capital incumbents and a wave of startups pursuing novel, lower-cost processes.

Company	Positioning	Stage / Funding	Notable Differentiator	Source
Yama Carbon	Hybrid electrochemical DAC using repurposed electrodialysis hardware.	Seed ($3M).	Focus on industrial practicality and mass-manufactured components to reduce capital intensity.	[Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]
Climeworks	Market incumbent using solid sorbent filters and high-temperature (100°C+) regeneration.	Commercial, with $650M+ raised.	Operational plants (Orca, Mammoth) and a large portfolio of corporate offtake agreements.	[Crunchbase]
RepAir	Electrochemical DAC using anion-exchange membranes.	Seed ($12M).	Pure electrochemical process, no heat required for regeneration.	[Crunchbase]
AirMyne	Liquid sorbent DAC using a calcium hydroxide solution.	Seed ($6.9M).	Use of abundant, non-toxic materials (lime) for lower-cost sorbent.	[Crunchbase]
NuAria	Modular, containerized DAC units using a proprietary sorbent.	Pre-seed/Seed.	Focus on modularity and mobility for distributed deployment.	[Crunchbase]

The competitive map sorts into three primary segments. High-temperature incumbent models, led by Climeworks, have proven durability and scale but face high energy and capital costs. Low-temperature challengers, including Yama Carbon, RepAir, and Carbonade, aim to reduce energy consumption, often by leveraging electrochemical or liquid sorbent approaches. Adjacent substitutes include point-source carbon capture, nature-based solutions, and enhanced weathering, which compete for the same corporate carbon removal budget but offer different risk and durability profiles.

Yama's current defensible edge rests on its specific technology choice and industrial design philosophy. The company's use of electrodialysis, a technique borrowed from water treatment, provides a tangible supply-chain advantage; it can source mass-manufactured components rather than designing bespoke hardware [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. This edge is durable only if Yama can maintain a cost and deployment speed lead over competitors also targeting industrial integration. The edge is perishable, however, if a competitor like RepAir achieves similar cost reductions with a simpler, heat-free electrochemical process, or if an incumbent like Climeworks successfully drives down costs through sheer manufacturing scale.

The most significant exposure for Yama is on the commercial and partnership front. While its technology roadmap is public, there is no disclosed anchor customer or offtake agreement. Competitors like Climeworks have locked in multi-year purchase agreements with major corporations like Microsoft and Stripe. In the 18-month scenario where project financing and host partnerships become critical, a startup without a named industrial partner or a clear path to its first multi-thousand-tonne plant could lose ground to rivals that secure those deals first. The winner in the near term will likely be the company that couples a credible technology with a signed, financed pilot at an industrial site.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitor data compiled from Crunchbase profiles; Yama's differentiation claims sourced from a single detailed profile.

Opportunity

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If Yama Carbon can execute on its roadmap, it is targeting a position in a carbon removal market where demand for durable, scalable solutions is projected to outstrip supply by orders of magnitude.

The headline opportunity is to become a standard-bearer for industrially practical direct air capture, a category defined by cost and deployment speed rather than pure scientific novelty. The evidence for this outcome is the company's explicit focus on leveraging existing supply chains from water treatment and using mass-manufactured components to build its systems [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. This industrial discipline, rather than a lab breakthrough, is the wedge into a market where incumbents like Climeworks have proven the demand for carbon removal but face challenges in scaling hardware and reducing costs. Yama's roadmap, which moves from a 365-tonne demonstration plant to a 5,000-tonne facility and aims for a ~50,000-tonne commercial plant by 2030, provides a tangible, staged path to achieving meaningful scale [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]. The prize is becoming the default DAC provider for industrial hosts and corporate buyers who prioritize integration with existing infrastructure and predictable deployment timelines.

Growth from a pilot to a commercial leader could follow several distinct paths, each hinging on a specific catalyst.

Scenario	What happens	Catalyst	Why it's plausible
Industrial Partnership Anchor	Yama partners with a major European utility or industrial conglomerate (e.g., TotalEnergies, Engie) to co-locate its first commercial-scale plant, securing low-cost heat/power and a strategic offtaker.	A signed memorandum of understanding with a named industrial partner for a multi-thousand-tonne pilot.	The technology is designed to integrate with industrial infrastructure and use low-grade heat [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]; the French and EU policy environment strongly incentivizes industrial decarbonization partnerships.
Aviation Offtake Leader	The company becomes a preferred supplier of high-durability carbon removal credits for the aviation industry, signing multi-year pre-purchase agreements with major airlines.	A publicly announced carbon removal credit purchase agreement with an airline like Air France-KLM.	Simpliflying's profile explicitly discusses Yama's relevance to aviation decarbonization [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024]; airlines are actively seeking scalable, permanent removal solutions to meet 2050 net-zero pledges.
Government-Backed Scale-Up	Yama wins a major grant or loan from an EU innovation fund (e.g., Innovation Fund) or the French France 2030 plan to finance its first 5,000-tonne facility, de-risking the capital expenditure.	Selection for a multi-million-euro grant under a publicly announced government program.	The company has already scaled a system 56x in one year to build the first French DAC pilot plant [Yama Carbon, retrieved 2024], demonstrating technical progress that aligns with national and European strategic priorities for climate tech.

The compounding advantage for Yama, should it secure an initial beachhead, is a flywheel built on cost reduction through volume manufacturing and operational learning. Each deployed module generates data to optimize the hybrid electrochemical process, potentially lowering the energy consumption already cited as 30% better than standalone electrochemical approaches [Third Derivative, retrieved 2026]. Successful deployment with an industrial partner would create a reference site, lowering the perceived risk for subsequent hosts and accelerating sales cycles. Furthermore, as production volume increases, the reliance on mass-manufactured components from established supply chains could drive capital costs down more steeply than for competitors relying on custom-engineered parts, creating a cost moat that reinforces scale.

To size the potential win, consider the trajectory of a public comparable. Climeworks, a pioneer in the DAC space, was valued at over $2 billion in its 2022 funding round as it aimed to reach megatonne capacity by 2030 [Bloomberg, April 2022]. While Yama is earlier-stage, a scenario where it successfully deploys its first commercial-scale plant capturing ~50,000 tonnes annually by 2030 [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024] would position it as a credible, capital-efficient challenger. If it captures even a single-digit percentage of the European DAC market projected to be worth billions annually by 2030, the company's valuation in a future funding round or exit could reasonably reach the high hundreds of millions, if not breach the billion-dollar threshold. This is a scenario, not a forecast, but it illustrates the magnitude of the opportunity if the company's industrial-practicality thesis proves correct.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Roadmap and technology claims are well-cited from industry profiles, but specific commercial partnerships and scale-up catalysts are not yet publicly confirmed.

Sources

PUBLIC

1. [Simpliflying Green, Feb 2024] Why Yama Carbon's approach to DAC focuses on industrial reality | https://green.simpliflying.com/p/yama-carbon-direct-air-capture

2. [Startups Without Borders, retrieved 2024] Yama Saraj is an entrepreneur and a social hacktivist, born in Afghanistan, raised in the Netherlands and now based in Paris | https://www.facebook.com/startupswithoutborders/videos/yama-saraj-is-an-entrepreneur-and-a-social-hacktivist-born-in-afghanistan-raised/542344986943597/

3. [Crunchbase, July 2024] Seed Round - Yama - 2024-07-07 - Crunchbase Funding Round Profile | https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/yama-b4dc-seed--ed3d1a14

4. [Crunchbase, retrieved 2024] YAMA - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/yama-b4dc

5. [Yama Carbon, retrieved 2024] Yama | https://yamacarbon.com

6. [Third Derivative, retrieved 2024] Yama | https://www.third-derivative.org/portfolio/yama

7. [Third Derivative, retrieved 2026] Yama | https://www.third-derivative.org/portfolio/yama

8. [Life Line, retrieved 2026] Life Line | #3 Yama Saraj - I always wanted to fight for my community | https://www.lifelinethepodcast.com/post/3yamasaraj

9. [Yama Saraj YouTube, retrieved 2026] Yama Saraj YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@YamaSaraj

10. [IPCC, 2022] IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2022 | https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

11. [BloombergNEF, 2023] Carbon Markets Outlook 2023 | https://about.bnef.com/blog/carbon-markets-outlook-2023/

12. [Bloomberg, April 2022] Climeworks Valued at More Than $2 Billion in New Funding Round | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-07/climeworks-valued-at-more-than-2-billion-in-new-funding-round