A new Vancouver climatetech startup is tackling one of the world’s toughest carbon problems: cement production.
CURA, a startup developing a transformative electrochemical process to produce low-carbon cement, has emerged from stealth with plans to build its first pilot plant in Canada. Cement manufacturing accounts for more than 8% of global CO₂ emissions—roughly equal to all passenger vehicles on the planet. CURA’s technology can reduce those emissions by up to 85% while lowering energy intensity and production costs.
Powered by electricity, CURA’s process splits limestone into lime and a pure stream of CO₂ before it enters the kiln, preventing emissions at the source. The resulting zero-carbon lime can then be used to produce low-carbon cement, while the pure CO₂ can be captured, stored, or reused.
“Cement is one of the hardest climate challenges left to solve—and the world cannot reach net zero without rethinking how it’s made,” said Erin Bobicki, co-founder and CEO of CURA. “With CURA, we’re offering a retrofit-friendly, scalable solution that eliminates process emissions without forcing producers to change their feedstocks or infrastructure.”
To bring this vision to life, CURA has assembled a founding team with deep expertise at the intersection of materials science, industrial scale-up, and climate innovation:
- Erin Bobicki, CEO and former VP at Brimstone, co-founder and CTO of Aurora Hydrogen
- Phil De Luna, CTO and former Chief Science and Commercial Officer at Deep Sky, sustainability expert at McKinsey & Company
- Sabrina Scott, COO and award-winning researcher at UBC and non-profit director
- Curtis Berlinguette, Science Advisor, UBC Professor, and serial climatetech entrepreneur
“We believe CURA can become a cornerstone of cement decarbonization,” said Phil De Luna, co-founder and CTO. “Our goal is to make low-carbon cement not just possible, but the default standard—and to help producers achieve deep decarbonization without disruption.”
CURA is currently developing a 100-tonne-per-annum pilot plant in Canada, with plans to scale to a 10,000-tonne demonstration facility within three years. The company is also partnering with global cement producers and infrastructure developers to validate its process under real-world conditions.
“Cement needs solutions that tackle process emissions at the source without forcing plants to rebuild,” said Ken Carrusca, former VP of Environment at the Cement Association of Canada.
“CURA’s electrochemical pre-calcination approach does exactly that—keeping familiar feedstocks and operations intact while producing a pure CO₂ stream for storage or use. If they hit their scale-up milestones, CURA could become one of the most deployable pathways for producers to meet 2030 and 2050 targets with real operational practicality.”
Building early momentum, CURA has initiated its first development partnership with an international infrastructure developer and is evaluating pilot sites for its 100 TPA unit. The company was also recently accepted into the Creative Destruction Lab’s Climate Stream in Paris, one of the world’s top programs for scaling science-based ventures.
With industrial partnerships forming and global networks expanding, CURA is moving fast from lab innovation to large-scale deployment—turning a fundamental climate challenge into a new industrial opportunity for Canada.
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