Carbon removal funding
Grants, prepurchases, and offtake commitments for engineered and nature-based CO₂ removal.
Carbon removal sits next to carbon capture but funds a distinct set of technologies, direct air capture (DAC), enhanced weathering, biochar, bio-oil sequestration, mineralisation, ocean alkalinity enhancement, and biomass carbon removal & storage (BECCS). Public-money pots (DOE Carbon Negative Shot, EU Innovation Fund, UK Track-2) overlap with carbon capture programmes but the offtake-purchase side is where carbon removal lives uniquely.
Frontier (Stripe / Alphabet / Shopify / Meta / McKinsey-backed) is the single most active buyer, with ~$1bn in committed prepurchases through 2030. Microsoft's Carbon Removal portfolio is the other large buyer. Stripe Climate, Klarna, Watershed, and a long tail of corporate net-zero programmes fill in below them. For founders this matters because an offtake purchase can function as non-dilutive early revenue at TRL 5–7, well before sovereign deployment grants are accessible.
Live opportunities
- Grant
Environmental Impact Assessment Grant
Deadline 1 Dec 2026Climate Intervention Environmental Impact Fund (CIEIF)• Up to $75,000Grants to support predictive environmental impact assessments, impact modeling studies, and stakeholder engagement for small-scale field tests of new climate intervention technologies. Eligible applicants can receive up to $75,000 per award.
- Contract
National tender for purchase of carbon credits (fibre crops)
Deadline 1 Dec 2026Waterschap Vallei en VeluweA Dutch water board wants to buy up to 600 carbon credits generated by growing and processing fibre crops into biobased building materials, delivered by 31 December 2028. Suited to agricultural or biobased-materials companies able to certify CO2 storage and deliver credits on time.
Active funders
Eni Next
OpenMicrosoft Climate Innovation Fund (philanthropy arm)
OpenUK Climate Change Committee
OpenDeadline calendar
Carbon Removal grants closing in the next 90 days, grouped by urgency. Each card opens the grants listed in that window.
Frequently asked
How is carbon removal funding different from carbon capture funding?▾
Carbon capture removes CO₂ from a point source (cement plant, refinery), it's an industrial decarbonization tool. Carbon removal pulls CO₂ from the ambient atmosphere or accelerates natural removal cycles. The technologies overlap (DAC sits on both), but funders increasingly distinguish: DOE Carbon Negative Shot, Frontier, Microsoft are removal-only. Innovation Fund covers both. EU CRCF (Carbon Removal Certification Framework) only certifies removals, not point-source capture.
How do offtake prepurchases compare to grants for early-stage CDR startups?▾
Functionally similar, non-dilutive, milestone-paced. Practical differences: prepurchases require credible delivery (typically 1–5 years out), come with stricter MRV requirements, and the buyer keeps the credit. Grants don't take the credit but require co-funding and project-management overhead. Many early CDR companies use both: prepurchase to anchor commercials, grant to fund capex.
Are nature-based removals (afforestation, soil carbon) eligible for the same programmes as engineered ones?▾
Mostly no. Frontier and Microsoft explicitly exclude nature-based removals from their main facilities (durability concerns). DOE Carbon Negative Shot covers both but separately. Nature-based removals have their own funding ecosystem: USDA Climate-Smart, World Bank PROGREEN, foundation funding (Bezos Earth Fund, ClimateWorks). Hybrid plays (BECCS, biochar) span both worlds.
What durability tier do these programmes require?▾
Frontier, Microsoft, and Watershed target 1000+ year durability for premium prepurchases. UK DESNZ GGR (Greenhouse Gas Removal) requires ≥100 years. Voluntary market buyers via Puro.earth, Isometric, and CDR.fyi span 100–10000 years. Soil carbon and short-rotation forestry typically fall outside engineered-CDR programmes, apply to the regenerative agriculture or forestry pots instead.
Get the full carbon removal feed
Match scores, alerts when new programmes open, and the complete listing of every carbon removal opportunity, across grants, government contracts, and offtake programmes.
Who funds this and how
Carbon removal has an unusual funding structure. Alongside the standard grant and procurement channels sits a buyer-side market: corporates purchasing removals directly, through prepurchases, advance commitments and offtakes. Most funding databases see only the grants. If you are building in CDR you need all three channels in view, and this page tracks them together.
The grant channel. Foundation programmes, government innovation funding and research calls tagged to this sector, filterable by stage and geography in the carbon removal grant hub. These have deadlines; check them first.
The procurement channel. Public tenders touching removal, storage and MRV, drawn from procurement systems across 51+ countries and prefiltered so you see the relevant slice rather than the raw firehose.
The buyer side. Verified credit retirements (9,900+ tracked) and commitments from 19,000+ tracked buyers show where offtake demand is actually signing, which is a stronger signal than any announcement. This lives on intel, and it is the channel that shapes who to pitch and when.
Standards-body consultations surface as their own filterable category; if you sell into compliance or voluntary markets, methodology changes are pipeline events.
Founders: the weekly routine at A founder workflow, start to finish applies directly with this sector filter pinned. It is written around a CDR company, so the example is literally you. Broader founder positioning: Raise Lens for climate founders.
What can I find here this week?
Recent
See all 17 →Most recent carbon removal listings.
Environmental Impact Assessment Grant
Climate Intervention Environmental Impact Fund (CIEIF)
Grants to support predictive environmental impact assessments, impact modeling studies, and stakeholder engagement for small-scale field tests of new climate intervention technologies. Eligible applicants can receive up to $75,000 per award.
National tender for purchase of carbon credits (fibre crops)
Waterschap Vallei en Veluwe · NL
A Dutch water board wants to buy up to 600 carbon credits generated by growing and processing fibre crops into biobased building materials, delivered by 31 December 2028. Suited to agricultural or biobased-materials companies able to certify CO2 storage and deliver credits on time.
What does Pro unlock?
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Search and browse every opportunity: title, sector, deadline, amount | Yes | Yes |
| Eligibility profile, with a match score on every card | Yes | Yes |
| Save up to 3 opportunities | Yes | Yes |
| Every listing named once public, with its full detail: public notices at once, the rest after 14 days | Yes | Yes |
| Unlock 1 official link a month: the notice and its application link | Yes | Yes |
| All weekly briefings, anonymised + email newsletter | Yes | Yes |
| Funder directory + intelligence headline stats | Yes | Yes |
| One saved search, with its new matches in your weekly email | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited saves, with deadline tracking | Yes | |
| Why it matches: the score breakdown, and the feed sorted by fit | Yes | |
| Names the day a listing opens, and every application link | Yes | |
| Named actors in signals + news-wire, 30 days early | Yes |
£50/mo or £500/year. The full split: What Free vs Pro actually unlocks, or see plans.
Related
- A founder workflow, start to finish
- Sample unlocked opportunity, a record like the ones above, every field annotated
- Accuracy and classification methodology, including how borderline records are scored
- Sibling sectors: energy storage, climate adaptation