- Frontier, the carbon-removal purchasing coalition formed by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify and others, has announced an additional $915 million in funding, bringing total pledges to $1.8 billion.
- The new tranche will support long-term offtake contracts for high-potential technologies such as ocean alkalinity enhancement, biomass-based removal, enhanced rock weathering and direct air capture.
- Frontier plans to make around 10-15 bets through eight to ten-year contracts, providing revenue certainty that backers say is critical to de-risk early-stage projects.
In an era when corporate climate pledges are under scrutiny, a consortium of technology giants is putting real money behind its promise to capture emissions from the air.
Frontier, an advance market commitment launched in 2022 by payment processor Stripe with support from Google, Shopify, H&M Group and others, this week said its members had earmarked an additional $915 million to purchase carbon-removal services.
The move raises the coalition’s total committed capital to $1.8 billion, making it one of the largest financiers of nascent carbon-removal technologies. AI firm Anthropic has joined the buyer pool, while Salesforce, already a member, remains part of the effort after an earlier reporting error.
The funding will be deployed through long-term offtake contracts across eight to ten years. Frontier plans to sign between ten and 15 such deals, effectively creating guaranteed demand for companies that can permanently remove carbon from the air.
The targeted technologies read like a shopping list of futuristic climate solutions: ocean alkalinity enhancement, which adds alkaline substances to seawater to boost its carbon-absorbing capacity; biomass-based removal, where organic waste is converted to stable forms of carbon; enhanced rock weathering, which accelerates natural chemical processes that lock carbon into minerals; and direct air capture, which uses fans and sorbents to strip CO₂ from the atmosphere.
Each has distinct cost profiles, energy requirements and scientific uncertainties. By aggregating demand and spreading bets across multiple pathways, Frontier hopes to drive innovation and lower costs over the next decade.
‘Valley of death’
Hannah Bebbington Valori, who leads Frontier at Stripe, said the new commitment aims to “push companies to the scale where there’s enough long-term demand to attract investors” and to bridge the “valley of death” between pilot projects and commercial deployment.
Scientists emphasise that removing billions of tonnes of CO₂ annually will be necessary to compensate for emissions from sectors like aviation and cement; however, current projects remove only thousands of tonnes. Frontier’s approach is to purchase future removal certificates at a premium, giving developers the revenue certainty they need to build facilities.
Previous contracts include deals with start-ups working on biomass-charcoal conversion and seawater carbon mineralisation.
The coalition’s expansion comes amid growing debate about the role of carbon removal in climate policy. Critics warn that promising future extraction could distract from aggressive emission cuts now, while proponents argue that both are needed.
Governments are still crafting regulatory frameworks: the EU is developing rules for certifying carbon-removal credits, and the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is consulting on a business model for engineered removals. Frontier’s funding could inform those policies by demonstrating market demand and price discovery.
For Britain’s nascent carbon-removal industry, the news is significant. A handful of UK start-ups are exploring direct air capture, but they struggle to secure finance without long-term offtake agreements. If the government adopts contracts for difference style support for carbon removal, Frontier’s early deals could serve as a benchmark.
Additionally, the technologies targeted by Frontier, particularly enhanced rock weathering and biomass-based removal, align with the UK’s strengths in geology and sustainable forestry. The coalition’s willingness to fund ocean alkalinity work also dovetails with research led by British universities.
However, scaling these technologies remains daunting. Ocean alkalinity projects must address ecological impacts; direct air capture is energy intensive; and biomass-based removal competes with land use for food and habitat. Policy frameworks will need robust monitoring and verification to ensure claimed removals are real and permanent.
As the world hurtles towards net-zero deadlines, the coalition’s move is a reminder that the private sector can play a catalytic role in climate innovation – but it cannot substitute for clear policy and collective investment.
