Claros raises $55 million to move PFAS destruction from trials to deployments

Why it matters

PFAS treatment often transfers chemicals from water into concentrated waste that still requires disposal. Claros is financing a combined testing and destruction system aimed at closing that loop at industrial scale.

Claros Technologies raised a $55 million Series B to manufacture and deploy its PFAS destruction systems globally, giving CEO and co-founder Michelle Bellanca the capital to turn a string of large field tests into repeatable commercial installations.

The Minneapolis company said in its July 28th announcement that Treehouse Family Capital led the financing. Strategic participants included fluorochemical manufacturer Daikin America and water-quality technology company Veralto, alongside the Bush Foundation, Nord Asset Management and the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation.

Bellanca came to Claros after 24 years at 3M, including operating and venture roles in Asia. She encountered the research behind Claros while serving on a University of Minnesota advisory group, then joined University professor and nanotechnology researcher Abdennour Abbas and researcher John Brockgreitens in building a business around it.

The timing of Claros' early financing nearly derailed that plan. Bellanca recounted in an April 2026 interview that the second half of Claros' seed round closed as the Covid shutdown began in March 2020. Claros shifted its textile research toward antimicrobial masks, generating revenue that helped keep its laboratory operating before Bellanca brought the focus back to PFAS.

That history helps explain the structure of Claros today. Bellanca is selling an integrated service rather than a single treatment machine: identify the chemicals, concentrate them, destroy them and measure the result.

The round is built for deployment

The $55 million headline includes the $10 million convertible note Claros announced on August 12th, 2025. Claros plans to use the Series B to expand manufacturing, hire engineering and commercial staff, develop products and install systems across North America, Europe and Asia.

Treehouse Family Capital led the round. Daikin America, Veralto, the Bush Foundation, Nord Asset Management and the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation participated, along with existing investors.

Claros' main product, ClarosTechUV, uses UV-driven photochemistry to break the carbon-fluorine bonds that make PFAS compounds unusually persistent. Claros says the system targets long-, short- and ultra-short-chain compounds, including forms that can be difficult to address with treatment processes designed mainly to capture larger molecules.

Claros is pairing that hardware with ClarosLabs, its ISO/IEC 17025-accredited analytical operation. ClarosLabs says it can quantify over 40 compounds, screen for over 9,000 PFAS chemicals and provide expedited results within four days. The mobile-lab expansion financed by the round is meant to bring those measurements to customer sites, shortening the cycle between testing a waste stream and configuring a treatment system.

That pairing addresses a basic problem in PFAS remediation. Filters, resins and foam-fractionation systems can remove PFAS from large volumes of water, but they leave behind a smaller, highly concentrated waste stream. Permanent destruction requires both a process that can handle that concentrate and analytical methods sensitive enough to verify what remains after treatment.

Daikin is both proving ground and investor

Daikin's participation carries the clearest commercial weight in the investor list. Daikin manufactures fluorochemicals and hosted Claros' most substantial disclosed industrial test at its Decatur, Alabama facility.

On December 15th, 2025, Claros and Daikin reported that ClarosTechUV treated over 170,000 gallons of industrial process water and destroyed at least 99.99% of the targeted PFAS compounds. The results covered long-, short- and ultra-short-chain chemicals, according to the partners. Claros also said its system operated at flow rates of hundreds of gallons per minute.

Those figures were released by Claros and Daikin rather than through a peer-reviewed study. They still represent a larger and more commercially relevant test than a laboratory demonstration, particularly because the system ran against industrial process water at a working fluorochemical facility.

Daikin's investment aligns the incentives on both sides. Fluorochemicals remain important in semiconductor fabrication, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and other applications where heat resistance, chemical stability and surface properties are difficult to replace. Claros is betting that manufacturers will pay to destroy PFAS waste at the source while continuing to use the compounds where substitutes remain impractical.

Bellanca has been explicit about that position. Claros supports alternatives where they are workable, while building disposal infrastructure for industries that continue using PFAS. Daikin benefits if that approach gives fluorochemical users a credible way to manage waste, and Claros benefits from an industrial partner capable of testing its equipment under operating conditions.

Claros reported another field result in spring 2026. In a project involving the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's Lake Elmo site, Claros treated a highly concentrated waste stream produced from roughly one million gallons of contaminated groundwater and surface water. Claros reported destruction of at least 99.99% for the targeted compounds, including PFOS, PFOA and shorter-chain PFAS.

Together, the Daikin and Lake Elmo projects broaden the case Claros can make to customers. One involved an active industrial facility. The other addressed concentrated waste from an environmental remediation site. The Series B is intended to convert those demonstrations into equipment that Claros can manufacture, install and support repeatedly.

Regulation is creating demand, with uneven deadlines

Claros is raising into a regulatory market that is moving in its direction, although the rules are developing differently across jurisdictions.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed retaining enforceable drinking-water limits of four parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS. Its May 2026 proposal would let qualifying water systems request until 2031 to comply, while a separate proposal would rescind federal drinking-water limits for four other PFAS categories. The federal direction therefore preserves a core compliance market while giving some utilities additional time and narrowing other parts of the 2024 rule.

The EPA is also supporting PFAS monitoring, treatment and destruction work across the chemical lifecycle. Its current PFAS program includes drinking-water standards, infrastructure funding and attention to industrial wastewater discharges.

Europe is proceeding toward broader restrictions. The European Chemicals Agency's scientific committees advanced their PFAS restriction work in March 2026, with targeted exemptions under consideration for uses where alternatives are unavailable. Separate restrictions covering PFAS in firefighting foams begin taking effect in October 2026. The European process gives Claros a potential market among manufacturers that must document, reduce and ultimately destroy PFAS waste across several industries.

Claros will face other destruction technologies pursuing the same spending. Aclarity uses electrochemical oxidation, Aquagga is developing hydrothermal alkaline treatment, and Revive Environmental offers a system based on supercritical water oxidation. Customers will compare destruction rates alongside throughput, energy requirements, treatment chemistry, byproducts, equipment cost and maintenance.

The Series B gives Bellanca room to compete on the part that often defeats industrial climate and environmental hardware: deployment. Claros has reported strong destruction results. The next phase requires manufacturing systems consistently, adapting them to varied waste streams and proving that customers can operate them at a cost that beats long-term storage, incineration or repeated disposal.

Bellanca spent the first years of Claros protecting its laboratory through a pandemic and building enough field evidence to earn the backing of a customer that manufactures the chemicals Claros destroys. The $55 million round finances the harder step: turning that alignment of science, regulation and industrial self-interest into a durable equipment and services business.