As Josh Silverman When he came up with the idea for his methane-guzzling microbe startup Windfall Bio eight years ago, the market simply wasn’t ready. Nobody cared about methane, he said. Instead, companies focused on reducing their carbon emissions. But a few years later, the market begins to recover.
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’s Climate Pledge Fund, Incite Ventures and Positive Ventures, as well as existing investors including Mayfield.
Windfall works with industries that produce large amounts of methane, such as agriculture, oil and gas, and landfills. The startup delivers methane-eating microbes that absorb methane emissions and convert them into fertilizer. Companies can either use the fertilizer themselves if they operate in the agricultural sector or sell it as a source of income.
“We believe there is a great opportunity to leverage this natural ecosystem that gives us a cost-effective solution without requiring massive capital investments like we see with these other carbon capture technologies,” Silverman said.
Although it took a few years for investors and companies to really get on board, Silverman said demand has been high since Windfall raised its seed round last year and emerged from stealth in March 2023.
“We had a massive influx from every continent and every industry; “It was a huge excitement,” Silverman said. “It is profitable for everyone, regardless of the industry. Everyone wants to reduce their carbon footprint in a way that makes them money and there aren’t many solutions.”
Silverman says carbon capture has been the sole focus for so long because once carbon is in the atmosphere, it stays around forever, compared to methane’s 10- to 12-year lifespan. When people thought about climate change a few decades ago, they looked for longer-term solutions. But now, as the impacts of climate change become both more noticeable and more severe, people are realizing that both short-term and long-term solutions are needed.
“We have literally missed every single climate goal we set,” Silverman said. For example, not a single G20 country has the necessary policies in place to achieve the emissions reduction targets of the Paris Agreement. “If you only look to the future and don’t do the day-to-day work, you’ll fall short of those goals and miss what’s right in front of you. We have to deal with the short-term climate factors, otherwise we will not be able to deal with the long-term factors.”
The lack of attention on methane is also surprising because methane can actually provide better ROI for companies than their carbon reduction efforts.
Carbon is waste, which means that when companies capture it, they are largely only doing so to get rid of it, not to convert it into something else. By comparison, methane is energy, meaning it can be separated and reused much more easily than carbon. Essentially, companies can reduce carbon emissions for potential cost savings down the road or receive an extremely legitimate carbon credit, while focusing on methane can actually make them money if they partner with a company like Windfall.
This deal also caught my eye because Windfall is part of a growing category of startups focused on alleviating the climate problems of today, not just those of the future. While it’s good for companies to focus on mitigating the long-term impacts of climate change or preventing future climate-related events, we need solutions now.
It reminded me of Convective Capital, a venture fund I’ve written about before that’s dedicated to wildfire technology. It’s not about the technology that helps prevent them, but rather about technology that helps society adapt to the impacts of increasing wildfires. Company founder Bill Clerico told TechCrunch in 2022 that while it’s great to develop long-term solutions, they mean nothing if your home is at risk from wildfires this summer.
Silverman said the market is still in the early stages of realizing the potential benefits of investing in methane reduction technology. But progress is good, and while he may be biased, Silverman is pleased to see the funding go to a climate company that isn’t another carbon credit startup. I agree with him on that.
“It’s been a long road to get here, many years without traction,” Silverman said. “Now that the attraction is there and there aren’t very many people working in the field, there aren’t as many competitors. We are the best of the few options. As I said, ‘In my land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.'”