SVG Ventures | THRIVE & Shell Showcase Winners of Climate-Smart Agriculture Challenge

15 March 2023, California: The THRIVE|Shell Climate-Smart Agriculture Challenge culminated yesterday with a startup showcase at SXSW in Austin, Texas.  

The three winning companies, selected from a global pool of almost 400 applicants from across 63 countries showcased their solutions at Shell House and participated in a panel discussion with representatives from SVG Ventures and Shell.

Shell GameChanger Awards were presented to Ireland based Silicate Carbon, the first company in the world to leverage the carbon-removal potential of waste concrete as an enhanced weathering material and US based Gazelle who are restoring grasslands to improve their carbon sequestration potential and fight climate change.

Canadian startup Lucent Bio received the Scale-Up award. They upcycle food processing co-products into micronutrient fertilizer that increases yields, improves soil health and increases soil carbon. 

Recognition Awards went to Israeli company Albo Climate who were the recipient of the Female Founder Award and True Algae from the United States were the People’s Choice Award winner.

SVG Ventures and Shell partnered to explore the vast agricultural innovation ecosystem to identify solutions that are driving the global transformation to climate-smart agriculture practices.  The focus areas for the Challenge centered around three key themes:

• Enhance land: Solutions that promote carbon sequestration and avoid emissions while improving soil health. 
• Connect farms: Solutions to improve farm connectivity to access carbon markets and carbon financing. 
• Measure soil: Solutions that measure and quantify soil carbon, soil health, and greenhouse gas emissions.

“The solution to the climate crisis will be driven by innovation and open collaboration across the broader innovation ecosystem,” said John Hartnett, Founder & CEO SVG Ventures|THRIVE. “We’re delighted to partner with Shell on this initiative and excited to support our winners as they play their part in driving innovation for a more sustainable future.”

“Reducing emissions from the agricultural sector is one of our most pressing challenges.” explains Julie Ferland, Vice-President for Innovation Excellence at Shell. “We are pleased to have partnered with Thrive and identified game-changing innovations in this sector which Shell can meaningfully help de-risk. This decade is critical to advance the technology that will help reduce the sector’s emissions and enable agriculture as an important sink to collect and store carbon dioxide.” 

Awards include up to $100k in non-dilutive funding and acceptance into the Shell GameChanger program, acceptance into the THRIVE Accelerator Programs, and the opportunity to be considered for additional investment from Shell Ventures.

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