Google has entered into a long-term purchase agreement and made a direct equity investment with Terradot, a carbon removal startup, to help scale its enhanced rock weathering (ERW) carbon removal technology.
As part of the agreement, Google will purchase 200,000 tons of carbon removal credits, delivered in the early 2030s. This represents the largest ERW carbon removal deal to date.
Through the investment, Google aims to support Terradot in proving and operationally scaling its technology.
“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,” Randy Spock, carbon credits & removals lead for Google, said.
Terradot secured $58.2 million in funding this week from a range of investors, including Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund. The investment includes $4.2 million in seed funding and a recently closed $54 million Series A round. The investments from Google and Microsoft represent both companies' first direct investments in an ERW company.
In addition, Frontier, a carbon capture partnership founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey, agreed to a 90,000-ton, $27 million carbon removal purchase for delivery between 2025 and 2029. Early purchases from Frontier customers aim to lower the deployment cost for Google purchases.
ERW is a carbon removal technique that accelerates the natural process of rock weathering. It works by grinding silicate rocks, like basalt, into fine particles and spreading them over land. This increases the surface area of the rocks, which speeds up chemical reactions between them, water, and air. Academic studies suggest that ERW can potentially remove between six and 30 Mt of CO2 annually.
"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," James Kanoff, CEO of Terradot, said.
Founded in 2022 at the University of Stanford, Terradot is currently conducting scaled pilot operations in Brazil. There, it has partnered with EMBRAPA, a Brazilian agricultural research institution, to develop an ERW framework that can be scaled throughout the country. Terradot has spread more than 48,000 tons of rock on more than 1,800 hectares of agricultural land in more than a year of operations.
Over recent years, Google has increasingly prioritized carbon removal. In 2024, it made several significant investments in carbon removal companies. For example, in September, it signed a $10 million agreement with direct air capture firm Holocene to remove up to 100,000 tons of DAC credits, which will be delivered in the early 2030s.
In May, Google joined Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce in launching the Symbiosis Coalition, an advanced market commitment for nature-based removal credits in the voluntary carbon market. The companies have collectively committed to contracting up to 20 million tons of these credits by 2030.
