April 22, 2022

entrepreneurship@UBC ventures awarded $1M Milestone awards in Musk's XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition

Canadian Beach with forest in background

entrepreneurship@UBC teams Carbin Minerals and Takachar win $1M in XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition funded by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation. 

XPRIZE, the leader in prize competitions to accelerate breakthroughs that benefit humanity, and the Musk Foundation announced 15 teams have been designated as milestone winners in the $100M XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, including 2 entrepreneurship@UBC ventures Carbin Minerals and Takachar. As winners, each team has been awarded $1M to recognize their efforts to date and support their continued work to scale solutions. 

The XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition was launched to encourage carbon removal innovators to work on tackling the biggest threat facing humanity: fighting climate change and rebalancing Earth’s carbon cycle. This $100M competition, funded by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation, is the largest incentive prize in history and the XPRIZE Carbon Removal teams represent the largest collection of innovators working on carbon removal. 

 

UBC Climate Ventures changing the world

Carbin Minerals and Takachar are ventures working with entrepreneurship@UBC as part of our Venture Founder: Lab2Launch and HATCH Venture Builder respectively. They are both part of our Climate Venture Studio, designed for UBC researchers, scientists and founders working on scientific or technological innovations, or disruptions that tackle a widespread climate issue. 

UBC spin-off company Carbin Minerals unlocks the enormous carbon dioxide removal potential of mine waste. Their technology will enable mines to become massive carbon sinks, while producing the metals needed to drive the clean energy transition. The team is led by CEO Paul Needham (Entrepreneur in Residence with entrepreneurship@UBC), Co-founder and CSO Dr. Greg Dipple, UBC Professor from the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences and lead of the CarbMin Lab, along with Co-founder and CTO, and UBC Postdoctoral Researcher, Dr. Peter Scheuermann, Co-founder and UBC Research Scientist Bethany Ladd, as well as VP Corporate Development Sean Lowrie (mentor with entrepreneurship@UBC). The team was recently in the news for signing a partnership with Shopify as part of their Sustainability Fund.

Takachar (also known as Safi Organics) is on a mission to fight climate change by transforming massive amounts of waste biomass into marketable products around the world. The team was part of the first round of XPRIZE recipients receiving $250,000 USD last November, shortly after being announced the winners of Prince William's inaugural £1 Million Earthshot Prize in the Clean Our Air category. Their Founder and CTO Dr. Kevin Kung is a postdoctoral fellow in Chemical and Biological Engineering at UBC.

Congratulations to both teams on this accomplishment! 

 

Learn more 


  • News

Get in touch

Connect

Explore our programs

Learn more

Locations

We are located across UBC Point Grey and Robson Square Campus. Learn more about our locations

We acknowledge that the UBC Point Grey and Robson Square campuses are situated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil- Waututh) Nations.

About us

entrepreneurship@UBC propels UBC innovations out into the world through venture creation, providing UBC students, researchers, faculty members, alumni and staff with the resources, networks, and funding they need to succeed.

We are a part of Innovation UBC in the Vice-President, Research and Innovation (VPRI) portfolio

Arrow An arrow indicating direction.