Google announced today an agreement for the purchase of 200,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits, to be earned through capturing CO2 in crushed rock and storing it in soil, with enhanced rock weathering (ERW) startup Terradot. Google has also announced an equity investment in Terradot.

The agreement, which will see the credits delivered beginning in 2029, marks the largest ERW deal to date, as well as Google’s largest ever carbon dioxide removal (CDR) purchase agreement, following a commitment announced in March by the company to contract for at least $35 million of carbon removal credits over the next 12 months.

Google said that the partnership will help support Terradot to enhance its ERW approach, and advance ERW “as a key climate solution that can deliver millions of tons of carbon removal within the next decade.”

Randy Spock, Carbon Credits & Removals Lead for Google, said:

“To unlock enhanced rock weathering as a useful tool for CO2 removal, we need to deploy it at scale and learn how to measure the results rigorously using real-world data. Terradot is well-positioned to do that work in an especially promising geography, and we’re excited to support them to help deliver significant amounts of CO2 removal both for Google’s net zero goal and for the planet.”

Founded in 2022 by James Kanoff, Sasankh Munukutl and Scott Fendorf, Terradot provides a carbon removal solution based on transforming the natural process of rock weathering. The company’s solution speeds up the natural process through which CO2 from rainwater is locked into rocks over time, by crushing basalt rock and spreading it over vast areas of farmlands, with an additional benefit of improving soil health at the same time. The company is currently running scaled pilot operations in Brazil, which it notes is an optimal location due to a combination of tropical soils, strength in agriculture, and 93 percent clean electricity matrix.

James Kanoff, CEO of Terradot, said:

“ERW has the potential to remove billions of tons of CO₂ this decade. Realizing that potential demands overcoming major scientific, engineering, and operational challenges within a tight timeline. We founded Terradot to do the improbable: to solve these challenges and transform Earth’s natural processes into a global carbon removal solution.”

The new agreement was launched alongside an agreement by Terradot with carbon removal buyer coalition Frontier for the purchase of 90,000 tonnes of carbon removal, to be delivered between 2025 and 2029, on behalf of companies including Stripe, Shopify, McKinsey Sustainability, Autodesk, H&M Group, Workday, and Salesforce, as well as Google.

Terradot also announced that it has raised $54 million in a Series A funding round, led by John Doerr, and participation by individual investors Sheryl Sandberg, Tom Bernthal, and George Roberts, as well as Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, Google, Cisco, and Venture Funds, Floodgate, Kleiner Perkins, Acre Venture Partners, Gigascale Capital, Valor Capital, Ponderosa Ventures, among others.

Sheryl Sandberg said:

“I’ve known James, the CEO, since long before this company started. These are proven leaders, which is rare to find in an early-stage company. They have the drive, the right technology and a strong focus on execution to succeed. Tom and I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of Terradot’s mission to combat climate change.”