Frontier

Funding tracks

To support technologies at different stages of development, Frontier purchases high quality, durable carbon removal through two funding tracks. Each track has its own eligibility criteria, diligence process, and funding amounts.

Track 1: Prepurchase

For early-stage suppliers piloting new technologies, Frontier offers low-volume prepurchase agreements to accelerate development. Suppliers receive funds upfront, before tons have been delivered.

Frontier accepts and reviews prepurchase applications on a rolling basis and will announce purchases twice per year.

Apply

You might be a good fit if:

You address at least one of Frontier’s prepurchase focus areas.
You have lab-scale performance and preliminary stability data showing a proof of concept.
Your Measurement, Reporting, Verification (MRV) approach is outlined, risks are identified, and a method is presented for reducing MRV uncertainty.
Technoeconomic Analysis (TEA) is based on a process flow diagram and mass and energy balance.
You can deliver first tons in the next ~1-3 years.

Track 2: Offtake

For larger suppliers preparing to scale, Frontier facilitates offtake agreements. These are legally binding contracts to buy future tons of carbon removal at an agreed price if and when delivered. This purchase track will make up the bulk of Frontier’s spend.

Frontier accepts offtake applications on a rolling basis.

Apply

You might be a good fit if:

Your technology has been validated at the bench or preferably small pilot scale.
Your MRV protocol addresses all key pathway uncertainties and establishes a plan to further reduce uncertainties.
A high-fidelity TEA based on a pre-FEED design or similar is presented.
You can deliver meaningful volume (10k tons or more) within the next 5 years.

If you’re not sure which track is right for you, please get in touch.

How we evaluate projects

We use four lenses to make purchasing decisions:

Approach

Does the carbon removal approach meet our target criteria?

Execution

Can this team deliver on the proposal, given where the technology is today?

Portfolio

Does this purchase help us build a diverse, risk-adjusted portfolio of carbon removal approaches?

Acceleration

Will a purchase now be catalytic to the supplier and broader field?

Purchase criteria

Criteria	Description
Durability	Stores carbon permanently (>1,000 years)
Physical footprint	Takes advantage of carbon sinks and sources that do not compete for arable land
Cost	Has a path to being affordable at scale (<$100 per ton)
Capacity	Has a path to being a meaningful part of the carbon removal solution portfolio (>0.5 gigatons per year)
Net negativity	Maximizes net removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide
Additionality	Results in net new carbon removed, rather than taking credit for removal that was already going to occur
Verifiability	Has a path to using scientifically rigorous and transparent methods for monitoring and verification
Safety and legality	Is working towards the highest standards of safety, compliance and local environmental outcomes; actively mitigates risks and negative environmental and other externalities on an ongoing basis

Purchasing targets

Frontier is laser-focused on making purchases today that increase the likelihood that we will have a low-cost, gigaton-scale portfolio of carbon removal in the future. Since Frontier began, we’ve explored which approaches have the highest potential, what makes a great project, and how to most effectively spend our funds. The pathway points-of-view below reflect this thinking and list the areas we are prioritizing for purchases this year.