Applied Carbon Lands $72M for Biochar as Just Climate Closes $540M Ag Fund

Applied Carbon has locked in $72 million in financing from Citi to scale its Texas-based biochar operations, the single largest deal in a week that also saw Just Climate close a $540 million agriculture-focused decarbonization fund and redalpine close an oversubscribed $250 million early-stage vehicle. The numbers frame a capital environment that remains selective but far from closed for agrifood technology.

Where did the money go this week?

The funding round ran from seven figures to nine.

• Applied Carbon (US): $72 million in Citi financing for biochar production based in Texas, per Carbon Herald. For row-crop growers, biochar carries direct relevance: it offers a route to lock carbon into soil and can shift the economics of residue management.
• Biomatter (Lithuania): $18 million Series A to accelerate AI-powered enzyme development, reported by Vestbee.
• Circularity Fuels (US): $7 million seed to convert dairy waste into jet fuel, per Axios. That is a margin question for dairy operators watching manure and processing effluent turn from disposal cost into feedstock.
• Aimer Farming (New Zealand): $1.8 million to bring grass-tracking technology to beef farmers, per Dealroom.
• Percent Labs (Syria): a seed round closed at a valuation above $1 million, per Wamda — a notable signal from a market rarely on agtech maps.

What does this change for input and energy costs? The Circularity Fuels model, if replicated, gives dairy regions a waste-to-revenue channel, while enzyme and grass-monitoring tools target yield and feed efficiency, the two levers growers actually control.

Which funds and grants moved?

Two fund closures and two grant-side developments dominated the institutional money.

Just Climate raised $540 million for its agriculture-focused decarbonization solutions fund, ESG Today reported. Redalpine, the Swiss early-stage investor, closed an oversubscribed $250 million fund, per Startup Ticker. Combined, the two vehicles put roughly $790 million into play for early- and growth-stage climate and agriculture ventures.

On the grant side, an MIT-led team received funding to develop next-generation alternatives to modern weed killers, MIT News reported — research that speaks directly to herbicide resistance and input spend. The Bezos Earth Fund joined Yield Lab Institute's Global Cattle Innovation program as a "catalytic funder," a designation that typically means anchor capital meant to crowd in other investors rather than fund operations alone.

What happened in M&A?

Two acquisitions reshaped the alternative-input and sweetener landscape.

REPLOID signed a $12 million term sheet to acquire Chapul, per the Insect Industry Report — a consolidation move in insect protein. Amyris, meanwhile, acquired Oobli in a bet on sweet proteins, AgFunderNews reported. Sweet proteins target sugar reduction without the caloric or regulatory baggage of some synthetic sweeteners, and Amyris is positioning the deal around that portfolio logic.

Who moved, and who left?

Leadership changes hit three US companies.

• Dana Worth joined Upside Foods as president, announced via LinkedIn.
• Jim Kaskade was appointed CEO of Bushel, the grain-marketing and farm-management software firm — a shift worth watching for elevators and growers using its platform.
• Beyond Meat's sales chief will resign later this month, per Street Insider, continuing a run of executive turnover at the plant-based meat maker.

What do the regulatory and research signals mean?

The EU approval pipeline produced two developments with commercial timelines attached.

Solar Foods' Solein protein gained a positive EFSA opinion as Fazer prepares an EU launch, per Food Ingredients First — a milestone that moves gas-fermentation protein from pilot rhetoric toward supermarket shelves. Separately, Denmark's 21st.BIO filed an EU novel food application for animal-free BLG, a beta-lactoglobulin dairy protein produced without cows, and publicly called for a fast-track approval route, per Vegconomist. That call matters: EU novel-food review times shape whether precision-fermentation dairies hit cost parity before or after their capital runs out.

In research continuity, Meatable donated 80 terabytes of its cultivated-meat research data to New Harvest, giving the open-science nonprofit a body of work that would otherwise sit idle, Protein Production Technology reported.

The sector's difficulties surfaced elsewhere. The Good Food Institute laid off six US staff amid funding challenges, per Green Queen — a contraction at the very advocacy group that has tracked alternative-protein investment for years. And Iran denied it was behind cyberattacks on French supermarkets, AgFunderNews reported, a reminder that retail food infrastructure sits squarely in the crosshairs of state-linked intrusion campaigns.

For growers and agribusiness buyers, the week's through-line is capital flowing toward decarbonization, waste valorization and precision tools rather than consumer branded goods, and the executive churn at Beyond Meat and Upside Foods suggests the shakeout in alternative protein is still running its course.