Ponderosa Ventures

Great piece by Amy Feldman at Forbes today about our work at Dalan Animal Health, Inc. to protect bees and the early results we've seen using our technology to protect shrimp from some of the most devastating diseases they face. Neither of these animals have had good solutions to protect them against disease. As a result farmers spend billions of dollars every year trying to do what they can and cope with massive losses. Losses don't just hurt the farmers. They also result in wasted emissions to grow feed for animals that end up dying or for power and fuel for farms. Most antibiotics are used in farm animals, not people. Shrimp and bees are no exception. We all pay the price. Literally, because losses drive food prices up, but also in the form of externalities like climate change and antimicrobial resistance. My colleague Morgan Halme started using the phrase, "Healthy Animals. Healthy Planet" internally and on our website and it's true. Animal health, planetary health, and human health are linked and effective vaccines are as close to a silver bullet as we've found. https://lnkd.in/ejHD9-FM

Today, we’re excited to officially launch Terradot with $58.2M in funding! We’re transforming Earth’s most powerful natural carbon removal process—silicate rock weathering—into a scalable climate solution through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). 🌍 Why we’re excited: $58.2M in funding led by John Doerr, joined by Sheryl Sandberg & Tom Bernthal, George Roberts, Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, Google, Cisco Foundation, Kleiner Perkins, Floodgate, Acre Venture Partners, Gigascale Capital, Valor Capital Group, Ponderosa Ventures and others. Nearly 300,000 tonnes of carbon removal sold, including a $27M purchase by Stripe's Frontier Climate buyers for 90,000 tonnes and Frontier member Google’s largest-ever single CDR purchase—200,000 tonnes. Starting in Brazil, an optimal location thanks to its tropical climate, agricultural scale, and clean energy grid. We believe ERW has the greatest potential to deliver gigaton-scale, permanent carbon removal this decade. But achieving that potential will be far harder than most realize. That’s why we built Terradot: to advance the hard science and build the technology required to activate the thousands of existing silicate rock quarries worldwide into scalable CDR hubs. Backed by the world’s strongest coalition—spanning industry, academia, and government—we’re taking a bold bet on unlocking ERW’s massive potential. The road ahead won’t be easy: millions of soil samples, snake-filled fields, and no guarantees of success await. The stakes couldn’t be higher. 🚀 This is just the beginning. If you’re a scientist pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, an engineer ready to build, or an operator obsessed with execution—come join us. Let’s work together to stabilize Earth’s climate. 🔗 Join Us: https://lnkd.in/gm-7gCEf 🔗 Google’s Blog Post: https://lnkd.in/grVPg65J 🔗 Frontier’s Blog Post: https://lnkd.in/gG--y6xn 🔗 Bloomberg: https://lnkd.in/gHBMqsb2 🔗 Brazil Coverage: https://lnkd.in/gjBQS6rQ #ClimateTech #CarbonRemoval #EnhancedRockWeathering #Terradot #ClimateSolutions #CDR

We’re excited to announce that Cerve has successfully raised a £3.5M Seed Round, led by SuperSeed and joined by Zenith Ventures, Ponderosa Ventures, and The First Thirty. When we started Cerve, we saw first-hand how fragmented, inefficient, and disconnected data exchange was in the food industry. There was no standardisation, no digital connection between platforms, and a glaring lack of real-time solutions. These challenges weren’t just operational – they were standing in the way of solving some of the world’s most pressing issues, including food waste and food security. Today, over one-third of all food produced globally is wasted, and that staggering statistic has remained unchanged for over a decade. Much of this is due to insufficient visibility and traceability across supply chains. Without standardised, accurate, and real-time data, visionaries, innovators, and disruptors are constrained in their ability to develop solutions quickly, cost-effectively, and at scale. Cerve exists to change this. Our infrastructure and API provide the data standardisation and enrichment needed to empower organisations to create transformative solutions, applications and automations. By giving businesses access to rich and real-time data, we’re enabling them to address global challenges faster and with greater impact. This milestone wouldn’t be possible without the incredible team of passionate and talented individuals driving Cerve forward. In addition, special thanks to Paul Williamson, Andreas Lundgren, Ferdinand Reynolds, Elin Torstensson, Martin Heier, Evi Steyer, Antony Yousefian, Elsa Hyland and many others who share our vision for a digitally-enabled food system. Check out the Sky News exclusive by Mark Kleinman (link in the comments).

🚀 We're officially launched! 🚀 Today, we're thrilled to announce our $3M launch to deliver the next generation of Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) sensing technology. 🌍 Our mission? To scale natural carbon removal with groundbreaking technology, making ERW measurable, reliable, and ready to transform our fight against climate change. 🙏 We are beyond grateful to have the leading ERW investors backing our vision: Carbon Removal Partners, Ponderosa Ventures, and Carbon Drawdown Initiative. Most importantly, however, huge thanks to our incredible team for making it happen! 🔗 Join us on this journey: https://lnkd.in/e2Vnmizh 📰 Read Axios coverage: https://lnkd.in/euRfDbC5 🌱 Discover how it all began: https://lnkd.in/eQqFsVb8 #ClimateTech #CarbonRemoval #enhancedweathering #ERW #StartupLaunch

Seaweed Plastic + Protein?... Coming soon! 🤘 I'm thrilled to announce Umaro Foods new collaboration with Sway, a leader in using seaweed polymers to make biodegradable, flexible film plastics. ➡ With the right chemistry, seaweed has enormous potential to solve two problems at once: the need for sustainable materials and the need for sustainable proteins. ➡ Until now, no commercial process could generate both of these products from the same piece of seaweed. ➡ Making plastic + protein from the same regenerative starting material is a major unlock for getting to super competitive unit economics for both products. ⚡ Made possible by a grant from the Department of Energy's $20m MACRO program, advancing seaweed tech as a solution to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. More details in our joint press release. https://lnkd.in/ggsDAV9K Julia Marsh, Matthew Mayes, Activate, Daniel Fishman, Simon Freeman, Elaine Watson #seaweed #bioplastics #alternativeprotein #protein #regenerative #biorefinery

We created a cheese from plants that tastes like a cheese not made from plants. For those suffering existential climate burdens and those who just want to eat a decent plant-based cheese. Now watch comedian Kate Berlant melt away all your worries and our cheese with laser beams shooting out of her eyes. https://lnkd.in/g9Cqsf4g