$40 million funding from high profile tech investors will supercharge Orange-based Loam Bio's carbon sequestration efforts

Loam Bio, formerly known as Soil Carbon Co., has developed a microbial crop seed coating for farmers that helps the soil around the plant's roots store more carbon, increasing soil quality and productivity and also reducing carbon levels in the atmosphere.

The start-up is based at Charles Sturt University's Orange campus and recently lodged plans with Orange City Council to expand their lab and research space.

Since its founding in 2019, Loam Bio has raised $50 million from investors.

The main investor from the latest round is TIME Ventures, a venture capital fund run by Silicon Valley billionaire Marc Benioff, the CEO and founder of the software company Salesforce.

Other investors include Main Sequence, Horizons Ventures, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Acre Venture Partners, Mike and Annie Cannon-Brookes' Grok Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, and Fiona McKean and Tobi Ltke's Thistledown Capital.

"We need to do every thing we can to slow or even stop climate change. What TIME Ventures loves about Loam Bio is their vision to sequester more carbon using the soil itself," said Mr Benioff on Twitter this week.

"Loam, with its powerful vision and promising technology, has great potential to play an important part in decarbonising the planet."

Loam CEO and co-founder Guy Hudson said their microbial carbon removal technology promises to be a key climate change solution because it is cheap, long-term and scalable.

"Using our naturally-derived products on crops across the globe will give the world the time it needs to adjust to a low carbon economy.

"The entire annual US aviation emissions could be removed if our seed coating was applied to America's soybean crop.

"Backing from some of the world's key technology founders and investors is an incredible catalyst for global-scale carbon removal."

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