Stripe Climate to Purchase up to $500,000 in Carbon Removal from Fellows' Startups
We are excited to announce today a landmark partnership with Stripe, a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet, in support of Activate Fellows whose technology innovations promise to permanently remove and store atmospheric CO2.
Through its Stripe Climate program, which directs resources to frontier carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies, Stripe will purchase carbon removal from Activate Fellows' startups with promising carbon removal technologies through $500,000 procurement contracts. This is in addition to funding and benefits from the Activate Fellowship.
This outstanding opportunity is part of the CDR Imperative, an initiative to identify, fund, and support fellows developing technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere at volumes, timescales, and efficiencies adequate to meet aggressive climate goals.
Ryan Orbuch, Stripe Climate’s procurement lead
“In order for CDR technologies to scale, we need to get a critical mass of startups to the starting line,” says Ryan Orbuch, procurement lead for Stripe Climate. “Activate is already providing a deep well of support for science entrepreneurs, and we see our partnership as a powerful multiplier of that support for fellows developing promising CDR technology.”
Stripe’s procurement contracts will be transformational to Activate Fellows and their startups, providing immediate traction and validating their technologies in the market, and likely triggering a cascade of follow-on benefits, from additional fundraising to attracting top talent. Applications for Cohort 2022 Activate Fellowship open October 15 and will close November 30.
“In order for CDR technologies to scale, we need to get a critical mass of startups to the starting line.”
The Stripe Climate team in Iceland, at the opening of the Climeworks’ direct air capture plant.
To learn more about the fellowship and how to apply, and to register for upcoming webinars and office hours with Carbon180’s director of science and innovation Peter Minor and Stripe Climate’s procurement lead Ryan Orbuch, go to activate.org/cdr.
Supporting CDR Innovation Through Fellowship + First Customer
“Carbon dioxide removal is already limited by human capital. Activate is extraordinary and is building the skills and experience that this new global enterprise requires,” says Julio Friedmann, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “Their partnership with Stripe provides the highest value possible to the CDR ecosystem today.”
Activate Fellows have introduced breakthrough clean energy technologies aimed at decarbonizing the energy grid, manufacturing—including hard-to-decarbonize products such as cement, buildings, and transportation. Building on these successes and recognizing the urgent need to confront climate change, we launched the CDR Imperative to support science entrepreneurs driven to advance the nascent field of scalable CDR technologies. According to the latest IPCC report, all pathways to limiting warming to 1.5 degree Celsius by mid-century require effective and scalable carbon dioxide removal technologies in tandem with emission reductions efforts.
Karin Lion, Activate’s chief growth officer
“This is a groundbreaking partnership for Activate and a remarkable opportunity for science entrepreneurs to gain early traction for their startups in the emerging CDR industry,” says Karin Lion, chief growth officer at Activate. “Identifying that first customer is one of the major challenges our fellows face. Stripe’s industry-leading initiative addresses that very problem. We are thrilled to be able to facilitate this onramp to Activate Fellows who are launching CDR startups so they can focus on technology development.”
With the help of more than a dozen scientists and advisors from around the world, Stripe and its ~5,000 users in 37 countries have committed a total of $9M to ten carbon removal projects. And there is evidence that Stripe’s early support spurred progress: Charm Industrial delivered Stripe’s purchase months ahead of schedule; Climeworks recently opened a new facility with 80x the capacity of its previous plant; and, in April 2021, CarbonCure and CarbonBuilt won the Carbon XPRIZE. These startups went on to attract additional customers and investors including Microsoft, Shopify, Lowercarbon Capital, and others.
Stripe Climate will offer procurement contracts to Cohort 2022 fellows whose products, when scaled, will meet the CDR Imperative selection criteria, which requires that proposed technology could store CO2 for 1000 years and sets thresholds around the amount and per-ton price of carbon dioxide to be removed and permanently stored.
Carbon180, a new breed of climate non-profit focused on carbon removal, provided Activate essential design and program support in deploying the CDR Imperative, from setting fellow selection criteria to forging partnerships. Carbon180 develops and advocates for federal policy to scale the nascent carbon removal industry and will support fellows in engaging with lawmakers and advocating for new initiatives that will benefit the growth of their businesses.
Confronting the climate crisis requires broad collaboration across sectors, and Activate is uniquely positioned to galvanize those connections by working across government, academia, industry, and philanthropic partners. Activate relies on a range of partners to fund the fellowship, and is grateful for a coalition of supporters, including Climate Pathfinders Foundation, the Grantham Environmental Trust, and Additional Ventures, that made it possible to launch the CDR Imperative.