Three members of the Windfall leadership team in the compost pile of a local community organic farm planning to deploy methane-eating microbes. Biology Dean Judy Hsu (left). CEO Josh Silverman. Carla Risso (R), Environmental Director.
Photo credit: Windfall
Josh Silverman Obsessed with methane.
A serial entrepreneur and biochemist, he has focused on methane for 15 years. Most recently, he focused on his idea of using methane-eating microbes to combat climate change.
That obsession, and a lot of persistence to get investors’ attention, led Silberman to launch his latest company. windfall bioThe startup was founded in 2022 and sells methane-eating microbes, or methanotrophs, to pilot customers, farmers.
Farmers get a lot of methane from cow burps and cow dung. These enzymes feed on methane, which contributes to climate change, capture nitrogen from the air, and make vital and important fertilizers. expensive goods Farmers can turn around and use it right on the farm.
On Wednesday, Windfall Bio unveiled its mission to the public for the first time, announcing a $9 million funding round from venture firm Mayfield, with participation from other investors, including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
It’s taken Silverman, co-founder and CEO of Windfall Bio, a long time to get to this point. For years, he struggled to get investors to pay attention to the idea. Because carbon dioxide is at the center of the climate change debate.
carbon dioxide is single Biggest cause of global warmingbut methane is in Second placeresponsible for approx. 30% of global warming Since the industrial revolution, according to International Energy Agency. methane is released Scrubbed out of the atmosphere faster It’s less than carbon dioxide, but it’s more than 80 times more powerful than CO2 in trapping heat, floating in the air for the first 20 years. According to NASA.
“If you just look at the long term and don’t invest in the short term at all, you’re going to stumble,” Silverman told CNBC.
“I think that perception has really changed in the last few years.”
Appropriate methane-eating microbes in windfall are seen here under a microscope.
Photo credit: Windfall
Learn about methane-eating bacteria
silverman I got my Ph.D. PhD in biochemistry from Stanford University in 2002, and he spent the first few years of his career developing therapeutics. But he was fed up with the slow pace of bringing those drugs to market, so he turned his expertise to industrial processes instead.
In 2007, he co-founded a company called Siluriaspecializes in turning natural gas, primarily methane, into higher value products.
Silverman and another scientist review data at the Calysta lab in 2015.
Photo credit: Josh Silverman
It surged in the early 2010s. hydraulic fracturingThis has led to a significant drop in the price of methane, strengthening the potential business case for using methane not only as a fuel, but also in the manufacture of products.
In 2010, Silverman co-founded. Callista, which specializes in making proteins by fermentation. There he had his first commercial experience with methane-eating bacteria.
“They were known and described in the literature, so you can find papers on them. , were literally a few geoscience professors in the basement of the geology department,” Silverman told CNBC.
Methane-eating microbes exist in nature, but the scientific literature of the time indicated that they were very slow growing and not easy to work with. However, as he investigated further, Silberman began to realize that those ideas were based on old research and did not use the latest technology.
“Most of the dogma turned out to be completely wrong,” Silverman said.
Given the right technology and the right kind of environment to feed them, methane-eating microbes, like most other types of bacteria, can be genetically modified and grow rapidly. .
Josh Silverman and the engineering team at the construction site of the first methane supply pilot plant based on Calysta technology in 2015.
“They can eat different foods than most other bacteria. And once you deal with that, the rest is actually pretty easy,” he told CNBC.
As a next move, Silberman used all his experience, combined with his knowledge that methane could be a building block for other useful products, and that methane-eating microbes could spread, He wanted to address climate change, which he called “the big elephant.” in the room. “
“Who cares about having a little impact here and there? You have to swing for the fence, right? It’s a ‘go big or go home’ story,” Silverman said. .
Measure methane on dairy farms in 2022. Normal atmospheric conditions are assumed to be 1.8 ppm, so this reading is over 60 times higher than the average.
Photo credit: Windfall
put the cow
Silverman wanted to know if methane-eating bacteria could help fight climate change, but he needed to understand the business case first. It was a problem,” Silverman told CNBC.
These microbes feed on methane and put the resulting nutrients into the soil, so cattle farms were a logical entry point. .
All the benefits are clearly measurable, so Silverman helped make the business case.
“We measure the methane going into the compost pile, we measure the methane coming out of the compost pile, we measure the carbon and nitrogen left in the compost pile,” Silverman told CNBC. There is no modeling or uncertainty associated with it, it is 100% quantifiable with the highest certainty of any kind of climate impact we have today.”
That business model brought Mayfield investors on board.
“By converting methane into effective organic fertilizers by methane-eating microbes, Windfall can dramatically reduce costs and turn the challenges facing these industries into advantages.” Arvind Gupta,partner Mayfield“Windfall’s innovative methane capture and conversion solutions have attracted the attention and investment of dairy and agronomy leaders such as Grupo Lala, Wilbur Ellis and TetraLaval, as well as experienced syndicated venture capital firms,” said Gupta. said.
Gupta also draws confidence from Silverman’s previous entrepreneurial experience. Since 2002, Silverman has co-founded four of his companies and helped grow two of his others.
Compost lagoon with methane bubbles visible, photographed at a dairy farm site in 2022.
Photo credit: Windfall
“We are proud to partner with Josh, one of the world’s leading experts and successful entrepreneurs in the commercialization of methane-eating microbes,” Gupta told CNBC.
Farmers are the first customers, but Silverman’s goal is to release these microbes into many other sources of methane emissions over the next few years.
First, they will move to other types of livestock farms, such as cattle, pigs and chickens, Silverman told CNBC. Move to another source.
“Our goal is not just for cows, it’s for everyone,” Silverman said.
