XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition | XPRIZE Foundation

Designed to stabilize the climate and help the world avoid irreversible climate catastrophe, this prize challenged teams to develop durable, scalable solutions that pull carbon dioxide from the air or oceans and lock it away permanently and sustainably.

Impact

800K tonnes of CO2 removed in 2024

4.9M tonnes of CO2 credits sold

5.8M hours of work by top 100 competing teams

Winner

Grand Prize Winner Mati Carbon uses enhanced rock weathering—spreading crushed basalt on smallholder farms in India—to lock CO₂ as bicarbonate for millennia while enhancing soils and boosting crop yields.

First Runner-Up NetZero removes CO₂ by creating biochar from tropical crop residues.

Second Runner-Up Vaulted Deep permanently stores CO₂ from otherwise unusable organic waste deep underground.

Third Runner-Up UNDO Carbon removes CO₂ with enhanced rock weathering.

Additionally, Planetary and Project Hajar (a partnership between Aircapture and 44.01) each received XFACTOR awards for their work in the Ocean and Air tracks.

Mati Carbon

Houston, United States

Mati Carbon, an affiliate entity of a US 501 (c3) Swaniti Initiative. Mati uses basalt-based enhanced rock weathering (ERW) to remove carbon from the atmosphere while improving soil health and crop productivity for smallholder farmers in Global South countries. Mati’s technology sequesters carbon dioxide while enriching the soil with nutrients, offering both environmental and economic benefits. Mati’s partnership with Yale University and verification partnership with isometric and Puro ensures best-in-class carbon removal measurement through robust monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) methods. Mati Carbon’s software platform streamlines ERW deployments by coordinating efforts with smallholder farmers across remote regions in Global South countries like India, Zambia, Tanzania. Mati’s core innovation is in its ability to deliver its state-of-the-art MRV stack by utilizing advanced solid, liquid sampling and testing techniques while also building some of the most sophisticated ERW models on the planet. Mati has been able to roll-out their customized MRV stack for smallholder farmer setting in multiple agroecology zones proving its viability for entire Global South with potential of impacting 100 million smallholder farmers.

Finalist
Phase 2 Top 20 Finalist Team
Phase 2 Top 100 Team
Phase 2 Team

Finalist Teams

Carbon Removal

Buy CDR Credits From the Top 20 Teams

The competition phase of XPRIZE Carbon Removal is over, but our competitors are still hard at work. Learn more about the work the Top 20 teams are doing, their CDR methods, and how to buy CDR credits from them.

Milestone + Student Winners

On the way to the Finals, the competition also awarded fifteen $1M Milestone Awards across the four tracks to recognize teams’ efforts and support continued scaling. The milestone winners by track are:

Air: Calcite from 8 Rivers Capital, Carbyon, Heirloom & Carbfix, Project Hajar, Sustaera, and Verdox & Carbfix
Land: Bioeconomy Institute Carbon Removal Team, Global Algae Innovations, NetZero, PlantVillage, and Takachar & Safi Organics
Ocean: Captura, Marine Permaculture SeaForestation, and Planetary
Rocks: Carbin Minerals

The competition also recognized 23 student-led teams in the $5M Carbon Removal Student Competition, divided into two distinct tracks:

In the Carbon Dioxide Removal Demonstrations track, 18 teams won $250k each: Answer of Biochar (AOB), E-quester, BioCORE, Biosorra, Bison Underground, Blue Symbiosis, C2 (C-Squared), Carbon Down Under, CyanoCapture, Holocene Climate, KFC, Mississippi State Energy Club - BECReative Energy, Monash Carbon Capture and Conversion (BioTech), SASIITB, Skyrenu Technologies, Sydney Sustainable Carbon, Takachar (Safi Organics), and UW-Madison Civil and Environmental Engineering.

In the Measurement, Reporting, and Verification Technologies track, five teams won $100k each: ACIDD Project, BJU Global Challenges, Environmental Sensing, PlantVillage, and Working Trees.

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Featured Report

How the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Finalists are Reducing Costs through Deployment

To meet the estimated 6–10 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide removal that will be needed annually by 2050, the industry will need to scale by orders of magnitude, requiring significant cost cutting measures.