Loam Bio

Loam Bio, founded in 2019, is an Australian biotechnology company that has developed a revolutionary microbial technology to enhance soil carbon sequestration in agricultural lands. The company's flagship product, CarbonBuilder, is a seed inoculum that coats crop seeds with specially selected fungi. This coating supercharges plants' natural ability to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide and store it securely in the soil as stable carbon. The process not only contributes to carbon removal from the atmosphere but also improves soil health, enhances crop yields, and provides farmers with potential additional revenue streams through carbon credits.

Loam Bio's technology focuses on storing recalcitrant carbon, which resists decomposition and can remain in the soil for extended periods, potentially up to millennia. The company has built a library of over 1500 microbial strains and has identified those most effective at carbon removal and farmland restoration. In field studies across wheat, barley, and canola crops, CarbonBuilder has demonstrated the ability to sequester between three to five more tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare compared to conventional practices.

The company has expanded its operations beyond Australia, with a presence in North America and plans to enter markets in Canada and Brazil. As of 2023, Loam Bio employed over 100 people, with the majority based in Orange, New South Wales, where the company plans to develop a bespoke production facility. In February 2023, Loam Bio raised AUSD 105 million (USUSD 73 million) in a Series B funding round to support its expansion and product development efforts.

Key customers and partnerships

Loam Bio has partnered with GrainCorp, a major Australian agribusiness, to launch a soil carbon collaboration program. This initiative aims to assist Australian growers in building and monetizing carbon in their soil. The program pairs GrainCorp's grower customers with Loam Bio's soil carbon inoculum technology to increase carbon storage in agricultural soil. In 2022, the collaboration involved planting barley and canola crops inoculated with Loam Bio's technology across 1,500 hectares in New South Wales and Victoria.

The company offers its CarbonBuilder products for canola and barley in Australia, with plans to expand to wheat. In the US, the focus is on soy and corn crops. Loam Bio also provides soil carbon project services to farmers through its SecondCrop program, which includes feasibility assessments, registration with the Clean Energy Regulator, and custom Land Management Strategies. Farms using SecondCrop projects that demonstrate net greenhouse gas emissions abatement can receive Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), which can be sold, kept, or used to offset on-farm emissions.