When josh silverman He started shopping around the idea for his methane-eating microbe startup, Windfall Bio, eight years ago, and the market wasn't ready yet. “No one cares about methane,” he said. Instead, companies focused on reducing their carbon emissions. But after a few years, the market began to emerge.
Menlo Park-based Windfall Bio has raised a $28 million Series A round to expand its commercialization efforts. The round was led by Prelude Ventures with participation from Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, Incite Ventures and Positive Ventures, among others, as well as existing investors, including Mayfield.
Windfall works with industries that produce significant levels of methane, such as agriculture, oil and gas, and landfills. The startup provides methane-eating microbes that absorb methane emissions and turn them into fertiliser. Companies can either use the fertilizers themselves, if they are in the agriculture sector, or they can sell them as a source of revenue.
“We believe there is a huge opportunity to leverage this natural ecosystem that gives us a low-cost solution without requiring huge capital investments like we see with other carbon capture technologies,” Silverman said.
While it took two years to attract investors and companies, Silverman said that since Windfall raised its seed round last year and came out of stealth in March 2023, demand has been high.
We have witnessed a huge influx from all continents and all sectors; “Tremendous amounts of excitement,” Silverman said. “It's a win-win no matter the industry. Everyone wants to reduce their carbon footprint, they want to do it in a way that they can make money and there aren't many solutions.”
Carbon capture has been the sole focus for a long time because once carbon is in the atmosphere, it lasts forever, compared to methane's 10- to 12-year lifespan, Silverman says. A few decades ago, when people were thinking about climate change, they were looking for longer-term solutions. But now that the impacts of climate change are becoming more apparent and worsening, people are realizing the need for both short-term and long-term solutions.
“We have missed literally every climate goal we have put in place,” Silverman said. For example, none of the G20 countries have the policies needed to meet emissions reduction targets under the Paris Agreement. “If all you do is look to the future and not do the day-to-day things, you miss those goals and you miss what's right in front of you. We need to manage short-term climate factors, otherwise we won't be able to manage long-term climate factors.”
The lack of interest in methane is also surprising, since methane can actually create a better return on investment for companies than in their carbon reduction efforts.
Carbon is waste, which means that when companies capture it, they largely do so just to get rid of it, rather than turning it into something else. In comparison, methane is energy, which means it can be captured and reused much easier than carbon. Essentially, companies can cut carbon for potential future cost savings, or earn a very legitimate carbon credit, while focusing on methane could make them money if they work with a company like Windfall.
This deal also caught my attention because Windfall falls within a growing category of startups focused on mitigating climate issues today, not just those we'll face in the future. Although it is beneficial for companies to focus on mitigating the long-term impacts of climate change or trying to prevent climate change events in the future, we need solutions now.
This reminded me of Convective Capital, a venture fund I've written about before that is dedicated to wildfire technology. It's not for technology that helps prevent them, but for technology that helps society adapt to the impact of now-increasing wildfires. The company's founder, Bill Clerico, told TechCrunch in 2022 that while it's great to build long-term solutions, those mean nothing if your home is at risk from wildfires this summer.
Silverman said the market is still in the early stages of recognizing the potential benefits of investing in methane-reduction technology. But progress is good, and while he may be biased, Silverman is happy to see funding going to a climate company that isn't just another carbon credit startup. I agree with him there.
“It's been a long road to get here, many years of zero gravity,” Silverman said. “Now that there's traction, and there aren't that many people working in this business anymore, there's not a lot of competition. We're the best of the very few options. As I said, 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.'”
