Startup Series: Planetary

Today's guest is Mike Kelland, CEO of Planetary. Planetary has an accelerated carbon transition platform that creates effective carbon removal at gigaton scale and reduces emissions through a clean alternative to fossil fuels. Their platform results in permanently sequestered carbon through ocean air capture, ocean deacidification, and clean hydrogen. They also recently won the XPRIZE Milestone Prize. Mike was actually one of the earliest listeners of this podcast, one of the earliest members of the My Climate Journey member community, and he also has a similar story to mine, coming from the traditional software startup world and finding his way into climate tech. In this episode, we talk about Mike's journey, why it came about, how it came about, the different phases and stages that he went through between becoming determined to work in climate and anchoring where he did. We talk about the Planetary origin story and Mike's evaluation process, in which he was talking to different labs and assessing different technologies. And we talk about what he learned about determining commercial viability and commercial readiness. We also talk about the Planetary approach, where they're at today, the different risks, the business model, building pilot plants, how those will be financed, who their customers will be, what the value proposition is for those customers. And we have a great discussion about carbon removal in general and some of the debates that have been occurring, what Mike's thoughts are on those debates, what gives him the confidence that carbon removal is not only important, but ultimately will be viable, and also just how the landscape plays out. Is there one winner? Are there a few winners? Is there a huge long tail, where there'll be lots of different winners? Are there no winners? At any rate, really great discussion, and I think you'll learn a lot. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter at @jjacobs22, @mcjpod, and @mcjcollective, and via email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded April 28, 2022