Close Menu
TechBrunchTechBrunch
  • Home
  • AI
  • Apps
  • Crypto
  • Security
  • Startups
  • TechCrunch
  • Venture

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news

Subscribe my Newsletter for New Posts & tips Let's stay updated!

What's Hot

Do startups still need Silicon Valley? Check out 2025 Surpt

July 28, 2025

First appearance: 2025 Confusing AI stage

July 28, 2025

Aerofrott, Russia's largest airline, is now hit by cyber attacks

July 28, 2025
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
TechBrunchTechBrunch
  • Home
  • AI

    OpenAI seeks to extend human lifespans with the help of longevity startups

    January 17, 2025

    Farewell to the $200 million woolly mammoth and TikTok

    January 17, 2025

    Nord Security founder launches Nexos.ai to help enterprises move AI projects from pilot to production

    January 17, 2025

    Data proves it remains difficult for startups to raise capital, even though VCs invested $75 billion in the fourth quarter

    January 16, 2025

    Apple suspends AI notification summaries for news after generating false alerts

    January 16, 2025
  • Apps

    Sam Altman warns that ChatGpt is not legally confidential when using it as a therapist

    July 25, 2025

    Apple expands the App Store age rating system

    July 25, 2025

    Google is testing a vibe coding app called Opal

    July 25, 2025

    Use x Community Notes to test and find everyone's favorite posts

    July 24, 2025

    Apple iOS 26 Public Beta Arrival

    July 24, 2025
  • Crypto

    Telegram's Crypto Wallet will be released in the US

    July 22, 2025

    Indian Crypto ExchangeCoindCX confirms $44 million stolen during hack

    July 21, 2025

    North Korean hackers blamed record-breaking spikes in 2025

    July 17, 2025

    Bitcoin surpasses $118K at the second highest high in 24 hours

    July 11, 2025

    Vitalik Buterin reserves for Sam Altman's global project

    June 28, 2025
  • Security

    Aerofrott, Russia's largest airline, is now hit by cyber attacks

    July 28, 2025

    72,000 user images have been published in violation of dating safety appetite

    July 26, 2025

    Allianz Life says “majority” of customer personal data stolen in a cyber attack

    July 26, 2025

    It took Google a month to shut down Catwatchful, a phone spyware operation hosted on the server

    July 25, 2025

    Cybercrime Forum Leak Zone has published the IP address of the user

    July 24, 2025
  • Startups

    7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

    March 24, 2025

    AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

    March 24, 2025

    20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

    March 22, 2025

    Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

    March 21, 2025

    Startup Weekly: Wiz bets paid off at M&A Rich Week

    March 21, 2025
  • TechCrunch

    OpenSea takes a long-term view with a focus on UX despite NFT sales remaining low

    February 8, 2024

    AI will save software companies' growth dreams

    February 8, 2024

    B2B and B2C are not about who buys, but how you sell

    February 5, 2024

    It's time for venture capital to break away from fast fashion

    February 3, 2024

    a16z's Chris Dixon believes it's time to focus on blockchain use cases rather than speculation

    February 2, 2024
  • Venture

    Do startups still need Silicon Valley? Check out 2025 Surpt

    July 28, 2025

    First appearance: 2025 Confusing AI stage

    July 28, 2025

    Index venture “Jahanvisaldana” shares the truth about what TAM and founders should focus on instead

    July 25, 2025

    With defense momentum growing, NATO Innovation Fund will update its investment team

    July 25, 2025

    How Y Combinator Food Delivery App Uses Tiktok to Soar in the App Store

    July 24, 2025
TechBrunchTechBrunch

Applied Carbon's agricultural robot turns plant waste into biochar to capture CO2

TechBrunchBy TechBrunchJuly 31, 20244 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Telegram LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Telegram Email


It's incredibly easy to release carbon into the atmosphere and accelerate climate change. But it's much harder to remove it. Startups are experimenting with large-scale industrial systems to remove pollutants from the air, facilities that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

So some other founders are thinking, why not let plants do the heavy lifting?

For Jason Aramburu and Morgan Williams, the answer was clear. But while some founders burn plant waste to fuel power plants and then capture the carbon, Aramburu and Williams turned to the centuries-old method of turning waste biomass into biochar, a charcoal-like substance that can store carbon for decades or even centuries. Done properly, this could sequester up to 2 billion tons of carbon each year while also helping farms increase crop yields.

“We both believe in biochar as a solution for carbon removal,” Aramburu told TechCrunch. But as he and Williams worked on the problem over beers at a bar in Oakland, California, they quickly ran into a problem: How do we actually scale it?

Biochar has a long history. South Americans have been producing it to improve soils in the Amazon basin for over 2,000 years. Today, about 10% of the region's soils still show signs of biochar amendments. However, production was labor-intensive and primarily carried out in situ.

One of biochar's biggest challenges remains logistics: finding enough plant waste, transporting it to a biochar facility, and then transporting the biochar to farms to be applied as a soil amendment, which is costly and energy intensive and can negate much of the carbon reduction benefits of biochar.

“It's going to be really difficult to move that material around,” Aramburu said.

So Aramburu and Williams decided to change the process from the ground up: Instead of hauling agricultural waste from farms to a biochar facility, they would bring the facility to the farm. “Identifying that problem was the first step in founding the company,” Aramburu says. The company became Applied Carbon (formerly Climate Robotics), with Aramburu as CEO and Williams as COO.

“The agricultural industry has spent over a century building large herbivorous animals that run around in fields and harvest materials,” Aramburu says. “It suddenly occurred to me that the best way to do something with agricultural residues was to mimic that working model.”

The result is a farm implement that will make any steampunk fan grin. The implement is pulled by a tractor and fed by a harvester, which dumps crop residue into a hopper where it is chopped into small pieces. It is then dried using recycled hot gases from a pyrolysis reactor, the next step in the process, where it is converted into biochar and syngas, which is used to power the farm implement. The biochar is quenched with water and spread on the soil, where it is mixed in using a disc harrow.

While the machine sounds relatively complicated, Aramburu said it could simplify biochar production and logistics, resulting in both cost savings and reduced carbon emissions.

Applied Carbon has built five prototypes in the four years since it was founded, and while the current machine is designed primarily for corn residue, Aramburu says it can be used for a variety of crops, including rice, wheat, straw, sorghum and sugarcane. It requires a large tractor and can cover about an acre per hour, but Aramburu says increasing speed is one thing the team is working on improving.

The $21.5 million the company raised in a recent Series A round should help.

“We raised this funding to take the pyrolyzer from prototype to initial production,” Aramburu said. The company is currently building the machines in Houston, with plans to deploy them in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, where they will produce biochar that will store carbon offsets that Applied Carbon already sells to companies like Microsoft.

For now, the startup operates the tractors that pull the machines, but in the future it plans to lease or sell the machines to farmers and help them sell the carbon credits their fields generate.

“To get to gigaton scale, you would need thousands of tractor operators in the field, which is not really scalable,” Aramburu said. “We don't want to be a fleet of farm equipment. We want to be like John Deere.”

Applied Carbon told TechCrunch exclusively that the round was led by TO VC, with participation from Anglo American, Autodesk Foundation, Congruent Ventures, Elemental Excelerator, Grantham Foundation, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Overture.vc, S2G Ventures, Susquehanna Foundation, Telus Pollinator Fund for Good, US Endowment for Forestry and Communities and Wireframe Ventures.



Source link

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

March 24, 2025

AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

March 24, 2025

20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

March 22, 2025

Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

March 21, 2025

Startup Weekly: Wiz bets paid off at M&A Rich Week

March 21, 2025

Wayve CEO shares his key elements for scaling autonomous driving technology

March 21, 2025

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Top Reviews
Editors Picks

7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

March 24, 2025

AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

March 24, 2025

20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

March 22, 2025

Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

March 21, 2025
About Us
About Us

Welcome to Tech Brunch, your go-to destination for cutting-edge insights, news, and analysis in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cryptocurrency, Technology, and Startups. At Tech Brunch, we are passionate about exploring the latest trends, innovations, and developments shaping the future of these dynamic industries.

Our Picks

Do startups still need Silicon Valley? Check out 2025 Surpt

July 28, 2025

First appearance: 2025 Confusing AI stage

July 28, 2025

Aerofrott, Russia's largest airline, is now hit by cyber attacks

July 28, 2025

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news

Subscribe my Newsletter for New Posts & tips Let's stay updated!

© 2025 TechBrunch. Designed by TechBrunch.
  • Home
  • About Tech Brunch
  • Advertise with Tech Brunch
  • Contact us
  • DMCA Notice
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.