German-Brazilian startup InPlanet announced that it has raised $1.3 million (€1.2 million) from a group of investors including Impact Investors Carbon Removal Partners, Übermorgen Ventures, Trellis Road, Katapult VC, and Carbon Drawdown Initiative. The goal of the company is to create a carbon removal solution that uses enhanced rock weathering in tropical countries where the technology has the highest potential impact.
InPlanet’s approach relies on accelerating rock weathering by distributing rock dust over arable land where it enhances tropical soil regeneration and fertilizes crops.
This allows farmers to reduce their use of limestone, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. As a result, InPlanet contributes to reducing emissions and creating a more sustainable farming practice, by growing healthier and more nutritious food.
“We are grateful for the support of our pre-seed investors and are happy to use the funds to grow our current team. In 2023, we plan to spread 50,000 tons of rock dust to remove 10,000 tons of CO2. This will allow us to generate unique and scientifically valid data to better understand the weathering process in the tropics.” Said Felix Harteneck, InPlanet CEO and Co-Founder.
Relevant: New Study Shows Enhanced Weathering Could Bring Half Of UK’s Carbon Removal Target
Prior to launching InPlanet, CEO and Co-Founder Felix founded two software companies. After creating a CO2 balance sheet for one of them and looking for solutions to offset the inevitable emissions, he realized that scalable, long-term, and safe solutions for removing CO2 from the atmosphere essentially missing.
While visiting his friend Niklas Kluger in Brazil (soon to become his co-founder), together they identified the enormous potential of enhanced rock weathering to remove carbon in the tropics and founded the startup InPlanet in August 2022.
InPlanet has established extensive scientific partnerships with leading universities in the field of agricultural research such as the University of São Paulo (ESALQ), Brasilia (UNB) and Newcastle. Together they are working on novel approaches to effectively monitor, report and verify how enhanced rock weathering performs in Brazil.
Read more: Rock Dust Can Capture CO2 And Increase Crop Yields
