Mati Carbon, AirMiners Launchpad Accelerator Graduate, Wins $50M Carbon Removal Grand Prize

SAN FRANCISCO -- This week, XPRIZE announced that Mati Carbon, a graduate of the AirMiners Launchpad accelerator program, as the winner of the $50M grand prize in the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, the largest single incentive ever offered for climate innovation. The prize recognizes Mati Carbon’s enhanced rock weathering process, which converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into stable minerals while improving smallholder farmers’ yields and enhancing their livelihoods.

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Mati Carbon sources basalt dust from aggregate quarries and applies it to cropland. As the basalt weathers, it releases nutrients that raise farm productivity on average by 20 percent and improves soil water retention capacity.

Mati Carbon is one of more than 200 carbon removal startups alumni from AirMiners Launchpad accelerator. AirMiners alumni have raised more than $250M of venture funding, grants, and prizes, and secured more than $100M in carbon removal offtakes.

“Mati’s success sends a clear signal to carbon removal entrepreneurs everywhere. Join a strong community, test fast, learn faster, and you can move the needle on climate,” said Tito Jankowski, CEO of AirMiners. “AirMiners is proud to have played a part in this journey, and we cannot wait to see Mati scale their carbon removal technology worldwide,” he said.

“We're incredibly proud of all the teams whose work contributed to significantly advancing the carbon removal industry. The collaboration between XPRIZE and AirMiners shows that strong networks turn bold ideas into real impact. Mati is living proof, and we are excited to see how this momentum accelerates the entire field,” said Nikki Batchelor, Executive Director of XPRIZE.

“As a proud graduate of AirMiners accelerator, Mati team was able to connect with a community of doers and benefited from the camaraderie. AirMiners structured incubation was also very helpful allowing early stage startups to gain important insights on business building. We are thankful to the whole AirMiners team and the community for being part of our story,” said Shantanu Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer of Mati Carbon.

As part of its vision for reversing climate change, AirMiners provides innovators with the support to rapidly scale their businesses through networking, education and investment, with the ultimate goal of enabling the removal of one billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2030.

AirMiners is hosting an online overview of Mati Carbon with CEO Shantanu Agarwal at 2 PM PST on Thursday, May 1st. To attend, register here. After the event, watch the recording here.

ABOUT AIRMINERS

AirMiners provides the catalytic infrastructure for innovators working to remove a billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2030. To learn more visit https://airminers.com/, follow on Twitter @airminers and LinkedIn.

ABOUT MATI CARBON

The Mati Carbon project is supported by a US 501(c)(3) non-profit, Swaniti Initiative. Mati accelerates the natural process of rock weathering (ERW) by applying pulverized basalt to croplands of partnered smallholder farmers free of charge. As the pulverized basalt weathers, it removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the weathering process releases nutrients from the rock which acts to re-mineralize depleted agricultural soils. This increases crop yields and thus smallholder farmers’ incomes. At present, the company is on pace to work with 30,000 farmers in India, Tanzania, and Zambia by the end of 2025. Mati is set on a planetary-scale mission to make ERW a common agricultural practice in order to benefit 100 million smallholder farmers in developing economies over the next 20 years.

ABOUT XPRIZE

XPRIZE is the recognized global leader in designing and executing large-scale competitions to solve humanity's greatest challenges. For over 30 years, our unique model has democratized crowd-sourced innovation and scientifically scalable solutions that accelerate a more equitable and abundant future. Donate, learn more, and co-architect a world of abundance with us at xprize.org.