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StratX, a climatetech company specialising in greenhouse gas reductions from landfills, has raised $1.19 million in a funding round led by Neglected Climate Opportunities (NCO) with participation from CarbonFix and an initial purchase commitment from Terraset. NCO is the Grantham Environmental Trust’s venture capital vehicle. The startup was developed with support from Deep Science Ventures.
Uncovered landfills and dumps across the Global South are significant contributors to global warming, releasing massive quantities of methane and toxic gases. Beyond their climate impact, these sites pose risks to surrounding communities with air pollution, contamination of water supplies and sources of disease.
StratX’s proprietary landfill cover technology provides a nature-leveraged, scalable solution to these challenges. The covers combine locally-available soil and gravel with indigenous microbes to naturally oxidise methane, effectively ‘eating’ the gas before it can escape into the atmosphere.
StratX’s measurement technology substantially reduces the uncertainty of landfill gas quantification, allowing the company to generate high integrity, permanent carbon credits.
Unlike traditional containment methods that require heavy investment, StratX’s model is designed to convert older landfills into profit centers for municipalities. The company implements the technology at no cost to the landfill operator or local municipality and shares top-line credit sales revenues with operators, host governments and local communities.
Kevin Wheeler, CEO of StratX, said:
“Landfills in the Global South are often seen as an unsolvable burden for local leaders who are caught between compounding environmental externalities and funding constraints. By treating landfill covers as living ecosystems, our technology neutralises environmental threats at the source.
We are removing the financial barriers to entry, empowering local leaders to protect their communities and the climate simultaneously.”
The pilot projects will focus on strategic locations currently being assessed in Africa and South America, including in Tanzania, Colombia and Chile. The pilots will show how StratX’s technology and business model can turn environmental liabilities into revenue-generating assets.
Elena Cavallero, Venture Advisor, The Grantham Foundation, said:
“We invested in StratX because landfill methane is one of the largest unmanaged sources of climate pollution on Earth (emissions on par with the entire EU power sector), yet it has been almost entirely neglected by both policy and capital.
StratX is building the first scalable model for addressing these emissions, starting in the Global South, where traditional gas capture infrastructure has consistently failed. The biocover approach is a low-cost, fast-to-deploy methane-abatement solution that can reach the tens of thousands of sites that existing solutions simply cannot.”
Tom Frankiewicz, Principal, Climate-Aligned Industries at the Rocky Mountain Institute, said:
“The scientific community has made substantial progress identifying ways to eliminate methane emissions from landfills and dumpsites, but real world adoption and deployment have been slow.
Biocovers offer an effective solution that can be implemented today, and we look forward to seeing them in action at more waste sites as novel business models put financing within reach.”
StratX is currently assessing sites across the Global South, designing covers for installation and engaging with local governments, landfill operators and community representatives to ensure the pilots deliver maximum social and environmental impact.
The capital will be deployed to install specially designed landfill covers on sites in Asia, Africa and South America, addressing both global environmental and local public health challenges.