A green company in Sweden that aimed to capture carbon dioxide for growing environments is the latest to go bankrupt. The company’s CEO, Mattias Karls, admits that the market “doesn’t really exist”.

It is the company Direct Carbon that has been operating at a loss and is now forced into bankruptcy after failing to find a sustainable business market for its technology, which they claim is “good”.

Mattias Karls is the CEO of the green company now in bankruptcy, and he tells the news site Impact Loop, which covers green companies, that the technology worked but demand did not meet expectations.

– We have a really good technology. I’m incredibly proud of it. It’s a cheap machine to manufacture, and it works very well. But the market doesn’t really exist today,” says Mattias Karls.

The company developed the product Wunderpumpe, a machine designed for greenhouses and indoor farms where extra carbon dioxide can improve plant growth through photosynthesis.

The idea was to replace traditional solutions such as purchased or produced carbon dioxide from fossil sources, or deliveries of carbon dioxide from industry. Instead, the system would take carbon dioxide directly from the air on-site and add it to the growing environment.

They have also tried to sell to smaller greenhouses as well as to urban environments and vertical farms.

‘Hard to Make It Work’

According to Mattias Karls, it didn’t really work in the larger greenhouses where alternative carbon dioxide sources are often cheaper.

– It was hard to put together a good business case for large greenhouses, since fossil carbon dioxide is so cheap there, the green entrepreneur tells Impact Loop.

He further downplays the fiasco by saying that “two or three years ago it was a very hot market.” But that “many companies have gone under” since then.

Now a bankruptcy administrator is taking over the green company and trying to sell the company’s ideas and patents.

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