This UK Startup Turns Pollution Into Everyday Products

Jan de Vries · 2026-11-03

What if the pollution choking our cities could be turned into the stuff we use every day? That's exactly what a small British company called Viridi is doing. And they just raised a fresh $2.8 million (€2.6 million) to take their technology global. Viridi, a deep tech spinout from the University of Southampton, has figured out how to transform waste carbon dioxide into chemical products. Their first target? Surfactants—the key ingredients in detergents, cosmetics, and countless other products we rely on. ### The Funding Round The $2.8 million round was led by Odyssey Ventures, with co-investment from Alphatron Impact Ventures and follow-on commitments from existing angel investors. TOP Ventures, the corporate VC arm of Thaioil, also joined as a strategic investor. This comes on the heels of a $3.6 million (€3.3 million) seed round in 2023. Dr. Daniel Stewart, CEO of Viridi, sees this as a major vote of confidence: "Having a strategic partner like TOP Ventures look closely at our technology, see its value and choose to back it at this stage is strong validation of what we've built. We'll be working closely with them to deliver our technology to market, starting in Asia. With Odyssey Ventures supporting our growth in the US, we now have partners who can help us take CO2-based surfactants to the world." ### Why It Matters Most industries still rely on petroleum or energy-intensive chemical processes to make the raw ingredients in liquid detergents, cosmetics, glue, and even mattress foams. Viridi's technology changes that. Their special catalyst plugs right into existing factory equipment, letting manufacturers swap out fossil fuels for captured CO₂ waste—no costly rebuilds required. It's a platform that can be applied across multiple classes of chemicals, with surfactants as the first major application. Eventually, the goal is to remove fossil feedstocks from the supply chain entirely. ### A Growing Trend Viridi's raise is part of a bigger wave of European investments in carbon utilization. In 2026 alone, Belgium's D-CRBN secured $18.9 million (€17.5 million) to convert industrial CO₂ into chemical building blocks, while Switzerland's Seprify raised $14.5 million (€13.4 million) for cellulose-based ingredients. In the UK, Uplift360 raised $8 million (€7.4 million) for composite regeneration, Sparxell $4.5 million (€4.2 million) for plant-based colorants, and HexSeed over $760,000 (€700,000) for CO₂-derived diamond coatings. Together with other rounds, these investments total more than $65 million (€60.3 million)—a clear sign that the sector is heating up. ### The Strategic Angle Thaioil's Vivat Wongnirund explained why they're betting on Viridi: "We have followed Viridi's development since 2024 and have been impressed by its progress, particularly in CO2-based surfactants. The technology has been tested in real manufacturing environments and shows strong potential for integration into existing industrial operations. Viridi's approach to using captured CO2 as an alternative carbon input is highly innovative. This investment gives Thaioil exposure to an emerging technology that fits our future growth strategy in disinfectants and surfactants." Ali Mitchell, Managing Partner at Odyssey Ventures, added: "Our commitment is to grow UK and European deep-tech companies that are solving some of the world's most fundamental problems. Viridi is exactly that kind of company." With backing from both sides of the world, Viridi is poised to make a real dent in industrial emissions—one surfactant at a time. And if they succeed, the products on your supermarket shelf might soon be made from thin air. Well, almost.