Frontier has opened applications for its 2026 Innovation program, inviting companies, research institutions and nonprofit groups to develop technologies aimed at advancing permanent carbon removal.
The program is part of Frontier’s broader effort to accelerate the deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions by providing early funding and guaranteed demand for emerging technologies.
The initiative operates under a large advance market commitment (AMC) designed to purchase more than $1 billion worth of permanent carbon removal between 2022 and 2030. Its founders include Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey Sustainability.
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Through the Innovation track, Frontier offers two types of financial support: prepurchases of future carbon removal and research and development (R&D) grants.
Prepurchases typically range from about $250,000 to $1.5 million and provide upfront funding to help early-stage projects move from laboratory development to field deployment. R&D grants, generally between $250,000 and $750,000, are intended to support research addressing critical technical challenges in the sector.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, with selections expected to be announced twice during the year.
The 2026 program focuses on solving key bottlenecks that could limit the scalability of carbon removal technologies. Priority areas include improving mineralization processes, advancing ocean and inland water alkalinity enhancement, and developing stronger monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) tools for open-system carbon removal pathways.
Frontier is also seeking novel approaches that could outperform existing technologies and deliver carbon removal at large scale and low cost.
The initiative comes as the carbon removal sector continues to grow rapidly. In 2025, Frontier portfolio companies began constructing projects capable of removing about 1.4 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, reflecting a sharp increase in planned capacity compared to 2024, Frauke Kracke, science lead at Frontier and Stripe Climate, said in a LinkedIn post.
Despite that progress, significant technical hurdles remain, particularly around cost, measurement and large-scale deployment. By funding early-stage experimentation and field trials, Frontier aims to accelerate the development of technologies capable of removing CO2 permanently and at gigaton scale.
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