Fwd: When a Carbon Removal Marketplace Buys a Biochar Project Developer
Greg Rau
News from the private sector:
When a Carbon Removal Marketplace Buys a Biochar Project Developer
How Wren’s acquisition of Pacific Biochar signals a new era for carbon removal, alternative exits, and the struggle to keep talent alive through the industry’s coming shakeout
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This is an episode summary of episode 375 of the Reversing Climate Change podcast. You can listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy your shows.
375: This CDR Marketplace Bought a Biochar Company. Now What?!—w/ Josiah Hunt of Pacific Biochar & Sophie Westover of Wren
Carbon Removal Strategies LLC
Episode
🔹 Quick Takeaways
The VC model was not built for carbon removal, and the cracks are now more visible: slow policy, tough fundraising, stalled DOE programs, and rising uncertainty in the U.S. slow down portfolio justification needed for venture.
2026 may be a bloodbath; Ross predicts closures, mergers, acquihires, talent drain, and dissolving cap tables as early climate startups run out of runway.
There are alternatives to the classic “raise, grow, IPO” arc, and Wren’s acquisition of Pacific Biochar is one of the first bold examples of creative climate exits.
Wren isn’t a typical marketplace. Its structure (with charitable giving, flexibility, and mission-centric governance) allows it to pay more, think longer term, and operate catalytically.
Buying a project developer is a radical move. It raises questions about independence, conflicts of interest, investment competency, and the future of carbon marketplaces.
For Pacific Biochar, selling made survival possible: smoothing cash flow, providing stability, and preserving years of hard-earned tacit knowledge.
Project developers often die not from tech failure but cash-flow collapse, a problem marketplaces may be uniquely positioned to solve if they choose.
The carbon removal sector desperately needs pathways other than “become a billion-dollar unicorn or die.”
Mergers and acquihires may be the missing middle, keeping founders, IP, and institutional memory inside the field rather than losing them to other industries.
This deal may be a blueprint—not for every company, but for survival in a tougher, more realistic era of carbon removal.
📝
The Emerging World of Alternative Exits
Ross begins with a confession: he’s been thinking a lot about the non-VC life cycle of climate companies. The myth of the hoodie-wearing wunderkind scaling a software startup to a $10 billion IPO was maybe always a bad fit for carbon removal, but now, with policy instability, a cooling investor climate, and DOE delays, the mismatch is impossible to ignore.
In climate tech, especially carbon removal, the road to survival is rarely straight. Offtakes are celebrated like finish lines, but in truth they’re new beginnings: commitments that must be fulfilled, milestones that must be hit, and cash-flow complexities that can break a company well after the headline has faded. As Ross bluntly puts it: 2026 is going to be rough. Closures, mergers, flat rounds, down rounds, board battles, and talent leakage seem inevitable.
🌱
Wren and Pacific Biochar: A Strange and Important Deal
This is why the Wren–Pacific Biochar acquisition is so fascinating. Wren began life as a B2C climate platform, but slowly mutated into something harder to define: part donation system, part carbon removals reseller, part catalytic capital player. Unlike pure marketplaces optimizing for lowest-cost tons, Wren has the freedom to pay more, buy earlier, and think longer-term.
That flexibility became crucial when Pacific Biochar, one of its longtime suppliers, reached an inflection point. Founder and CEO Josiah Hunt had spent years navigating the fragile economics of biochar deployment: managing cash flow, dealing with the quirks of rural operations, and facing the harsh reality that “mission-first” often conflicts with “VC-first.”
Selling a majority stake to Wren wasn’t selling out. It was a survival strategy. It kept the company’s institutional memory intact, protected staff, and allowed the work to continue. In a field where founders sometimes don’t get the luxury of dignified exits, it was a rare example of a deal that was mission-aligned and pragmatic.
⚖️
The Big Question for Marketplaces
But the deal also raises complicated questions:
Should marketplaces own project developers?
What happens to independence and neutrality?
Do marketplaces even have the skills to assess project risk or run operating companies?
Will this become normal, or is it a one-off anomaly?
Ross is clear-eyed: marketplaces like Wren usually avoid taking on project risk. They prefer to be connectors, not operators. The typical logic is, “if someone is struggling and wants to sell, why would we want to buy their problem?”
But in a fragile ecosystem, maybe someone should buy the problems so talent doesn’t leave, so projects don’t collapse, so early knowledge isn’t lost to layoffs and shutdowns.
This, Ross argues, is leadership. And maybe even a template.
🔄
The Coming Wave of Creative Deals
Ross sketches out scenarios he expects to see soon:
Companies with shrinking runway and no obvious next round.
Down rounds that dilute founders and early employees beyond recognition.
Acquihires that save teams but not cap tables.
Assets, IP, and infrastructure selling for pennies just to keep the lights on.
Founders choosing mission continuity over personal liquidity.
And yet, there is hope. If well-capitalized climate companies, marketplaces, and philanthropically structured entities step in at the right moments, the field can avoid a catastrophic loss of talent and institutional wisdom.
Deals like Wren’s give permission for others to explore “non-VC exits.” Not every company will IPO. Not every founder will get a yacht. But perhaps the goal was never wealth—it was always impact.
In that spirit, Ross invites listeners in similar situations to reach out. Some deals will be small. Some will be acquihires. Some will preserve only part of a company. But preserving something is far better than letting entire teams disperse.
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