Climate Robotics, a developer of mobile biochar production systems, won the 2023 AgSharks Pitch Competition, earning an equity investment offer of $250,000 at the Western Growers annual meeting.
Biochar is a carbon-negative soil amendment made from waste biomass that improves soil health and generates carbon credits.
Jason Aramburu, Co-Founder and CEO of Climate Robotics, said biochar was invented by farmers in the Amazon thousands of years ago to improve their soil and help grow more crops. “So this is an opportunity to take ancient wisdom and apply modern technology.”
In more recent years, Aramburu said scientists have also figured out that biochar is good for the climate, providing agriculture “an immense opportunity to leverage existing resources to sequester billions of tons of CO2 on farms.
The firm has pre-sold over $11 million in carbon removal credits to some of the largest companies in the world, including Microsoft.
The in-person competition, sponsored by Western Growers and S2G Ventures, featured pitches from Climate Robotics, along with Cultiva, a leader in plant cuticle health technology, and Provision, a cloud software company focused on simplifying recordkeeping and regulatory compliance for growers. Provision was the audience choice winner.
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The competition started in 2017 “to accelerate the adoption of new technologies that can solve real-world problems and work in tandem with industry to ensure we are directing capital to its highest and best use,” said Audre Kapacinskas, principal at S2G Ventures.
Previous winners Hazel Technologies, Burro and Nutjobs have since attracted millions of dollars in investments and brought their products from the development stage to market, said Walt Duflock, senior vice president of Innovation at Western Growers. "There is nothing like the pressure cooker of telling your story to hundreds of top produce industry leaders to prove you are ready to take your technology to market,” he said in a release.
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