Avnos

Avnos attacks direct air capture's two worst cost centers — energy and water — simultaneously, and 2025 gave the thesis a concrete anchor. Its Hybrid Direct Air Capture, originated at the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, uses a moisture-swing sorbent that needs no thermal energy to regenerate and co-produces roughly five tons of clean water per ton of CO2 captured rather than consuming water like conventional DAC. In November 2025 Avnos finalized the decision to build Project Cedar, its flagship four-module facility rated at about 3,000 tonnes of CO2 and over 6,000 tons of water annually, funded through up to $17M in phased project financing from Shell US Gas and Power and Mitsubishi Corporation — lifting combined private and public funding past $100M, on top of the $36M Series A led by NextEra Energy Resources and agreements with ConocoPhillips and JetBlue Ventures. The site is expected to be named in early 2026 with groundbreaking in the spring and first operations by year-end. The water co-product reframes the whole pitch for the data-center era: CEO Will Kain has positioned HDAC as built for a world where compute demand makes both power and water scarce, so a system that produces water instead of drinking it has a second value stream the thermal-DAC incumbents can't match. With energy majors, an aviation buyer, and a utility all on the cap table, Avnos has the strategic backing and the resource-efficiency angle that could make it the low-cost structure of the DAC field.