Cocoon Carbon, a startup unlocking a new, scalable supply of key materials used to make concrete, has raised £11 million in Series A funding led by 2150 and Brick & Mortar Ventures, with participation from TVC (The Venture Collective). The investment will support deployment of Cocoon’s first commercial demonstration facility in the United States and accelerate hiring in the United States and United Kingdom.
Concrete is the most widely used material on earth after water, and widely used cement substitutes known as supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) have historically come from coal plants and iron blast furnaces. As those industrial processes are retired across the United States and Europe, SCM supply is shrinking while infrastructure construction demand is increasing and global infrastructure is projected to double over the next 40 years. SCM demand is growing at approximately 6–7% per year and prices in several markets have doubled since 2017 as supply tightens.
Cocoon Carbon converts steel slag, a byproduct of electric arc furnaces used in steelmaking, into a cement replacement used in concrete production. Its rapid cooling technology retrofits directly into existing electric arc furnace steel waste handling processes, capturing molten slag straight out of production and cooling it 100 times faster than existing technologies to produce supplementary cementitious materials. The resulting material matches the performance of traditional SCMs while reducing the embodied CO2 of concrete by up to 40%.
Rather than building standalone production systems, Cocoon Carbon integrates into existing steelmaking operations and locates production directly at steel mills. This reduces energy inputs, capital expenditure and transport costs while expanding the supply base concrete producers rely on. Tens of millions of tons of steel slag are produced annually in the United States and Europe, while electric arc furnace steelmaking is projected to double by 2050.
The Series A funding will support deployment of Cocoon Carbon’s first commercial demonstration facility in the United States, intended to validate performance at industrial scale. The company plans to establish an operating track record that enables rollout across more than 50 steel plants in the United States and Europe. Over the past year it has piloted the technology at a major steel mill and completed third-party validation of the material in concrete applications, while building an R&D facility and concrete testing lab in London. Cocoon Carbon is also expanding its team with process engineers, materials scientists and commercial staff in the United Kingdom alongside plant operators and technical staff in the United States.
The SCM market is facing a structural deficit at exactly the moment infrastructure demand is rising. We’re focused on delivering a plug-and-play solution that gives concrete producers access to affordable, local materials - while improving the economics of electric steelmaking. Expanding supply is the fastest way to stabilize costs and lower carbon in concrete.
Concrete is one of the biggest value streams on the planet, providing the foundation of our civilization, from buildings to infrastructure to data centers. It consumes orders of magnitude more energy than AI and emits more CO2 than any other sector. Cocoon stands out in the innovation landscape with a product that is better and cheaper than cement and delivers a true drop-in replacement product for the industry.
