Spring 2025: Ebb Carbon’s Macoma Project Secures First-Ever NPDES Permit for mCDR & More

See the latest highlights from Prime's portfolio companies, color coded by portfolio across Trellis Climate, Azolla Fund I, Prime Impact Fund I, and our syndication phase. To find out more about our entire portfolio, visit investments page.

• Aikido Technologies, which has developed a platform for floating offshore wind turbines that could transform the industry's economics, obtained a statement of maturity from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS). This recognition follows the company’s successful demonstration of its platform's ability to convert from a compact transportable form to an upright floating configuration, covered by Offshore Wind Biz, WorkBoat, and Cyprus Shipping News.

• BioLumic, a company that programs plant genetic expression using light, announced the launch of its first commercial Trait Activation System at Gro Alliance’s seed production facility in Cuba City, Wisconsin, marking its entrance into the global seed industry. Additionally, BioLumic was featured in FeedNavigator, CropLife, and Brownfield. 

• Carbon Reform, a company developing modular carbon capture systems that reduce CO2 and contaminants in commercial buildings, raised $5.5MM in a seed-plus round, bringing its total funding to $9MM. Investors included Philadelphia Eagles minority owner Richard Green, the State of Delaware, and MVP Capital Partners. Technical.ly, The Philadelphia Citizen, The Business Journals, and Axios covered the announcement.

• Charm Industrial, the company sequestering carbon via bio-oil, announced its second carbon removal agreement with Google. The first deal will be fulfilled using Charm’s bio-oil removals, while the second will leverage Charm Biochar as part of a larger 200,000-tonne carbon removal purchase—100,000 tonnes from Charm and 100,000 tonnes from India-based Varaha—through 2030. This marks one of the largest biochar purchases in history, as covered by Reccessary, Carbon Herald, Sustainability Magazine, ESG Drive, Data Dynamics, and Axios.

• Clean Crop Technologies' Co-Founder and CEO, Daniel White, spoke with Mass Founders Network about the process of developing an intellectual property (IP) portfolio. Clean Crop uses high-voltage plasma technology to boost yields, improve food safety, and reduce food waste.

• ConnectDER, which designs products for utilities to monitor and manage residential distributed energy resources (DERs), was featured in a MassMutual Ventures article on key trends in home electrification. The piece highlighted the factors that led to MassMutual Ventures' investment in ConnectDER.

• Ebb Carbon, a marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) company, made history by becoming the first mCDR project to secure a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under the Clean Water Act’s NPDES framework. Covered by the Caron Herald, this milestone permit supports their Macoma pilot project. Ebb Carbon was also featured in The Washington Post’s article, “How an antacid for the ocean could cool the Earth,” exploring ocean alkalization. Additionally, CFO Jeff Kennedy spoke at a Web Summit Qatar session, covered by Gulf Times.

• Funga, a company optimizing the microbiome of tree roots to accelerate growth and store carbon in wood and soil, secured an investment from The Arbor Day Foundation. Additionally, Renewable Matter interviewed Funga’s CEO, Colin Averill.

• Gradient, the company building a climate-friendly hybrid heating and cooling unit to push the building sector toward zero carbon, was featured in a CNET spotlight on how its All-Weather 120V window heat pump transforms home heating and cooling. Additionally, Founder Vince Romanin was featured in a Public News Service article on solutions to protect apartment tenants during extreme weather.

• Lilac Solutions, which is scaling up lithium supply for the electric era, was featured in Mining Technology’s article on how direct lithium extraction (DLE) is transforming and de-risking the industry. 

• Mallinda, a pioneer in advanced polymer technology and creator of the VITRIMAX™ resin system, announced the commercial launch of a new product: Vitrimax™ Versatile Hot Melt (VHM) Resin. This vitrimer-based composite resin revolutionizes how manufacturers process and recycle high-performance composites, featured in Composites Weekly, JEC Group, CompositesWorld, The Machine Maker, Interplas Insights, and ChemAnalyst.

• Muon Vision Inc., a company developing a more sustainable way to process critical metals, was included in Diamond List's annual selection of the top 25 early-stage climate companies for 2024.

• Noon Energy is developing low-cost battery technology for long-duration energy storage, allowing intermittent renewables to meet continual demand. The company was selected as one of 16 climate technology entrepreneurs to join Elemental Impact’s portfolio as part of its $18.6MM investment in companies driving local job creation and global impact.

• Oxylus Energy, which is developing a lower-cost method to convert carbon dioxide into green methanol for hard-to-abate sectors, announced a joint R&D initiative with Element 1® Corp. to explore using its green methanol as a feedstock for point-of-use hydrogen production, as covered by EnergyTech.

• Quidnet Energy, the company developing an alternative approach to energy storage by storing water to deliver energy, successfully demonstrated its long-duration Geomechanical Energy Storage (GES) at the megawatt-hour scale (MWh) at its Greater Houston test site. Covered by Solar Builder, PV Magazine, CleanTechnica, and Power Magazine, this milestone confirms Quidnet’s GES solution is ready to deliver reliable, grid-scale energy storage to meet growing demand.

• Still Bright, which is developing closed-loop reactions for fast, environmentally sound, and complete copper extraction, was featured in the Climate Compass report, highlighting early-stage startups driving climate resilience and global decarbonization. 

• Low-carbon cement company Sublime Systems was included in the Global Cleantech 100 by Cleantech Group, and its CEO, Leah Ellis, was featured in Holcim's series “Meet the Female Startup Founders Building Change.”

• Twelve, a carbon transformation company using electrochemistry to turn CO₂ into essential products, announced $83MM in additional Series C funding to support the development of its AirPlant One facility in Moses Lake, Washington. The announcement was covered by ESGToday and Renewables Now. Additionally, Twelve’s Co-Founder and CEO, Nicholas Flanders, was interviewed by Lombard Odier to discuss how the company’s technology is closing the carbon loop.

• Shreya Dave, CEO of Via Separations, was featured in The Engine's "Fast Five with Tough Tech Leaders," a series highlighting founders and builders commercializing challenging tech breakthroughs with significant impact potential. 

• Wright Electric, the electric aircraft company aiming to eliminate carbon emissions from all regional flights, successfully powered up its Wright WM2500 motor—which aims to be the most powerful and power-dense aerospace motor ever built—controlled by Wright’s WV250 inverter. This exciting milestone enables the next steps in high-power, altitude, thrust, and aircraft testing, which Aviation Week, Aerospace Testing International, and Renewable Energy Magazine covered.