Frontier acquires $900 million from big tech to further carbon removal goals

The Big Tech-backed carbon removal coalition Frontier announced fresh funding of around $915 million on Wednesday, bringing its total financial commitments to $1.8 billion with the addition of top AI company Anthropic to its roster of financiers.

Other financial contributors to the new round include Stripe, Google, Shopify, Salesforce, and the H&M Group.

Frontier’s objectives and plans for carbon removal fund

The Frontier coalition serves as a type of advance market commitment, a model where big companies commit to purchasing credits in carbon removal projects before they are fully developed.

The guaranteed future demand helps to reduce financial risk for emerging carbon removal companies, making it easier for these companies to secure investment and attract additional sources of capital, while accelerating the monetization and development of their technologies.

Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey created the coalition in 2022 with an initial $925 million in pledges.

The new funding aims to target four different technological categories for carbon removal. These include ocean alkalinity enhancement, biomass-based removal, enhanced rock weathering, and direct air capture, according to Reuters. Frontier stated that all four areas are capable of reaching gigaton scale but carry differing costs and risks.

Hannah Bebbington Valori, Frontier’s head, pointed to the shift in strategy as a move from launching an industry to growing and sustaining it. The original commitment was designed to “get carbon removal off the starting line,” as said in Frontier’s announcement. The new round, which Frontier calls its “Growth AMC,” will focus on “pushing the best companies to the scale that enables robust, long-term demand.”

Frontier plans to make roughly 10 to 15 concentrated investments through offtake contracts running eight to ten years, with some extending to 2040. The coalition said it would buy a significant share of each company’s available capacity and prioritize projects located in jurisdictions with meaningful carbon removal policies.

Carbon removal sector growth since 2022

The number of carbon removal companies has expanded from around a dozen to hundreds, spanning more than 20 technology approaches, according to ESG Today. More than 350 new corporate buyers from sectors including financial services, aviation, and retail have collectively purchased close to four million tons of removal.

Within Frontier’s own portfolio, seven companies broke ground on 1.4 million tons of new annual removal capacity in 2025. Those projects are expected to deliver more than 50,000 tons this year, a figure Frontier said has doubled for two consecutive years.

Randy Spock, Google’s head of carbon credits and removals, said in a statement that Frontier’s work is “a cornerstone” of the company’s approach to using science and technology against planetary warming, according to ESG Today.

Carbon removal is widely regarded by climate scientists as an important tool for offsetting emissions from sectors that remain difficult to decarbonize and continue to rely on fossil fuels.

As Big Tech companies continue to commit to the sector, with funding for carbon removal projects from private institutions now approaching $2 billion, it is now obvious that major tech companies are now treating permanent carbon removal more as a strategic, long-term procurement category instead of the experimental climate initiative it was previously viewed as.

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