(Bloomberg) — Technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the air have struggled to gain traction. High costs are a key reason. A group led by Stripe Inc. is trying a different approach to enable breakthroughs: backing startups that not only capture CO2 but create byproducts, including the cleansing of mine sites.
Frontier, a public benefit corporation owned by Stripe, has facilitated its fourth round of carbon removal prepurchases from nine companies on behalf of buyers Stripe, Shopify Inc., Alphabet Inc., Hennes & Mauritz AB and Match Group Inc. Many of the startups are removing carbon while generating useful byproducts, from a startup that spreads rocks over farmland that improve soil health to one that cleans up mine sites while extracting clean metals.
Creating a technology that captures and sequesters CO2 is not enough for startup success, said Florian Birner, co-founder and…


