Deep Sky gets ‘full value’ after making most of its inclusion in investment summit

Deep Sky gets ‘full value’ after making most of its inclusion in investment summit SEAN SILCOFF TECHNOLOGY REPORTER PUBLISHED 1 HOUR AGO Open this photo in gallery: Deep Sky executives Charlie Renzoni, left, and Jason Vanderheyden helped pitch the carbon capture and storage startup's planned Alberta megafacility to global investors in Toronto. FRED LUM/THE GLOBE AND MAIL COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. When Deep Sky Corp. was invited to apply for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada Investment Summit, chief executive Alex Petre knew her carbon capture and storage startup had no time to spare. It was May 29; foreign direct investment agency Invest Alberta Corp. wanted to know if Montreal-based Deep Sky, with whom it had worked for two years, was interested in being considered for the summit less than four months later. Ms. Petre and her team recognized what that meant – a chance to parade before the world’s most deep-pocketed investors at an unprecedented event on home turf. The answer was a resounding yes. “We knew we had to be there, we had to show up, so we put all the pieces together,” said Jason Vanderheyden, Deep Sky’s Toronto-based vice-president of government affairs and public policy. Even if it wasn’t selected, he said the company “already had a plan in place to approach this summit as a key opportunity for Deep Sky.” The 40-person remote team sprung into action. By the time they found out in the second half of August that their carbon capture project made it into the government’s coveted summit prospectus deal book, Deep Sky was ready to pitch investors. Their effort culminated in three days of wall-to-wall events, investor meetings and shoulder-rubbing for Ms. Petre and three other senior leaders in Toronto’s financial district. Canada has a post-summit glow. Here’s what’s still needed to spur major investments At every turn, they made the case for their company, which is testing eight different direct air capture technologies that pull carbon from the sky at a demonstration plant an hour north of Calgary. (The startup chose Alberta because of its favourable regime for such projects.) It became the first such facility in North America this year to issue carbon credits to offset emissions by corporations. The company’s project featured in the deal book is the first phase of a planned Alberta-based megafacility called Deep Sky One.…