David Kim

Dr David Kim is a Korean-British entrepreneur who emigrated to the UK and grew up in South London. A medical doctor by training, he completed his postgraduate studies in Medicine at Christ Church College, University of Oxford, where — as a student — he quietly began developing the science that would become CyanoCapture. He also commissioned as a reservist Army Officer in the Parachute Regiment at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and served as a resident doctor in the British Army, as well as with Christian medical organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In January 2021, David co-founded CyanoCapture alongside Samir Chitnavis, with the mission of making industrial-scale carbon capture affordable by harnessing genetically modified cyanobacteria — photosynthetic microorganisms that absorb CO₂ from the air. The startup won one of 23 Elon Musk XPRIZE student prizes in 2021 and attracted investment from leading clean-tech backers. David has co-authored more than ten papers and patents spanning vaccine immunology and the thermodynamics of cyanobacterial CO₂ fixation.

As Founder and CEO, David leads CyanoCapture's strategy, commercialisation, and scientific direction. The company's technology has engineered cyanobacteria strains that fix carbon at rates 300% higher than natural strains, converting biomass into graphite and high-value recombinant proteins — making carbon capture an economically self-sustaining process for industries such as power generation, cement, and oil refining.