The biotech’s $21 million Series A spherical was additionally backed by the world’s greatest automaker Toyota and enterprise corporations Lowercarbon Capital and Felicis Ventures, and takes complete funding raised thus far to $36 million.
Trees’ capacity to soak up climate-damaging carbon dioxide and emit oxygen is central to the world’s efforts to rein in world warming, but the speed of deforestation continues apace and hit a recent report excessive within the Amazon final 12 months.
While the chief focus for a lot of is on defending present forests and re-planting these which were lower down, Living Carbon goals to tweak bushes’ genetic code in order that they develop extra shortly, lock extra carbon away and are extra resilient.
‘Photosynthesis enhancement’, used for years with crop vegetation, will increase biomass relatively than yield so is healthier suited to carbon markets, the place success is measured by how a lot carbon is locked away, CEO Maddie Hall mentioned.
“We’re focusing not just on increasing the rate of carbon capture, but also preventing it from decomposing and returning back to the atmosphere,” she added.
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Founded in 2019, the San Francisco-based firm mentioned its first product, a hybrid poplar tree, had the potential to seize as much as 27% extra carbon. Living Carbon mentioned it deliberate to make use of the cash raised to provide as much as 5 million saplings and fund analysis into new merchandise, regardless of opposition from campaigners over potential unintended penalties of genetically tweaking bushes.
Non-profit The Campaign to Stop Genetically Modified Trees mentioned in a report that among the many greatest considerations is the “unpredictable, uncontrollable and irreversible nature” of the affect, given tree pollen and seeds couldn’t be contained.
By planting the Living Carbon bushes and locking away extra carbon, landowners would generate a ‘carbon credit score’ that might be bought to the rising variety of corporations eager to offset their emissions.
“The company’s use of biotechnology in trees demonstrates how human-empowered ecology can be a scalable and viable solution to the climate crisis,” Lisa Coca, Climate Fund Partner at Toyota Ventures mentioned in an announcement.
Living Carbon will plant about 60,000 seedlings in February and has bought out of its carbon credit for 2023, Hall mentioned, however is doing pre-sales for the next two years.