CarbonZero.Eco, a startup tackling regenerative agriculture and CO2 removal through Biochar, emerged from stealth and announced a $3.5 million seed round that includes investments from managers and executives at Google, Meta, Amazon and the CEOs of several late-stage startups.
The company also revealed it has signed deals worth $7 million with over 300 almond farms in Colusa County and Yolo County, California to mitigate up to 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions from waste breakdown. The new funding round will advance the company’s mission to help American farmers enhance soil quality, increase crop yields, and generate additional revenues while also removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by revolutionizing Biochar production at scale.
CarbonZero.eco’s first Biochar production site – located in Colusa County, CA, where almonds are processed – is slated to open in late April 2025. And Puro.earth – the world’s leading carbon crediting platform – vetted the planned facility which has passed Puro.earth’s preliminary assessment, registering CarbonZero.eco as a biochar CO2 Removal Certificate supplier. The company will start generating certificates in the summer of 2025 carbon dioxide removal.
Every year, at least 1,300 million tons of agricultural waste is produced and this amount is likely to expand further in a world with a growing population to feed. And the current approach to handling this waste through landfills and incineration has contributed to approximately 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions and also created various toxic pollutants.
Biochar is a process that stabilizes carbon within the biomass, locking it away for thousands of years, while effectively preventing its release during decomposition and contributing to carbon removal. This carbon removal generates valuable carbon removal certificates that are highly sought after in the market. Supported by 6,000+ studies, Biochar has also been proven to significantly enhance soil quality and crop yields for future generations. CarbonZero.eco has teamed up with California almond farmers to convert up to 1.5 million tons of almond shells–which would normally decompose in 24 months and release their carbon as CO2–into Biochar.
CarbonZero.Eco CEO Harper Moss and CTO Gregory Ray are on a mission to introduce Biochar to roughly 525 million acres of farmland in the US, which could benefit from its regenerative properties, requiring over 2.6 billion tons annually. To achieve this goal, CarbonZero.Eco is addressing two main challenges: farmer enablement and the substantial Biochar shortage in the US. One of the major unlocks for the company was building their plant in a location where hundreds of farms already aggregated their biomass, so that the company’s plant required no additional transportation so the carbon impact is extremely net-positive.
Harper was just 15 years old when she first came up with the vision for CarbonZero.Eco driven by her passion to make a positive impact on the planet in a way that would also benefit the farmers who feed the nation. And realizing the remarkable potential of biochar in revitalizing farmlands and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — which is a practice largely overlooked across the 8.5 million acres of California farmland – Harper embarked on a mission to introduce the transformative benefits of biochar to farmers.
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“Harper’s passion, persistence and drive led her to start an amazing company tackling regenerative farming and carbon emissions at a critical time for both, and I am so excited to see how far she takes it along with Greg and the impressive team they have put together.”
- Angel investor Rich Miner, co-founder of Android and former founding partner at Google Ventures
“Harper pitched our ownership group and convinced us that she would build a business model that we would all benefit from. We look forward to working with her and Greg to increase crop yields, improve soil health and create additional revenue for the more than 300 local growers we serve. We are excited to be the first location for CarbonZero.Eco and hope that others learn from what we are doing here.”
- Dan Pronsolino, General manager, Cortina Hulling and Shelling LLC
“Farmers are the beating heart of our country, yet haven’t been a big enough part of the carbon conversation before. Regenerative farming and carbon sequestration go hand in hand thanks to Biochar, and I am humbled that hundreds of farms trust us enough to partner with us on this journey.”
• ⁃ CEO Harper Moss
