Apply for prepurchase

Frontier’s goal is to get carbon removal on its best possible trajectory, and our prepurchase track is designed to support early stage companies in getting out of the lab and into the field.

We now accept applications on a rolling basis and prioritize buying from projects that address specific gaps we see in the field, in addition to meeting our purchase criteria.

You can find examples of past applications, contracts, and templates here.

About the prepurchase track

As the first step in applying, please use the table below to understand our program and make sure the prepurchase track is the right one for your company.

	Track 1: Prepurchase	Track 2: Offtakes
Summary	Low-volume prepurchase agreements to support early-stage suppliers piloting new technologies	Larger offtake agreements to support more mature suppliers preparing to scale
Purchase amount	$500K	~$10M - $50M
Purchase structure	Paid upfront, before tons have been delivered	Commitment to buy future tons at an agreed price if and when delivered
Frontier expectations and risk tolerance	Thorough diligence, higher risk tolerance than offtakes	More extensive diligence, lower risk tolerance than prepurchases
Application cadence	Pre-applications accepted on a rolling basis	Applications accepted on a rolling basis
Application deadline	For consideration in the first announcement wave, please submit a pre-application as soon as possible	No deadline, but we encourage you to express interest as early as possible
Expected status across evaluation criteria
Performance data	There is lab-scale performance and preliminary stability data (preferably for days or more) showing proof of concept that the company’s approach removes CO₂ from the atmosphere.	Tech has been validated, preferably at or beyond small pilot scale, with data establishing performance and stability baseline. Roadmap defined for how the company will narrow gaps between current data and techno-economic analysis (TEA) assumptions.
Monitoring, reporting, & verification (MRV)	Clear MRV approach outlined. For CDR pathways with lower verification confidence levels (VCLs), risks are identified and a method presented for how new data will be generated to reduce quantification uncertainty.	Company has a CDR protocol and is in discussion with one or more credit issuers. Volume offered is discounted based on identified MRV uncertainties (if any) and we have high confidence in the ability to quantify volumes purchased.
Techno-economic analysis (TEA)	A TEA based on a process flow diagram and mass and energy balance, using realistic engineering values (or similar) for equipment pricing, first principles estimates of performance, and basic assumptions for utility costs (format provided).	A high-fidelity TEA based on a pre-FEED design or similar, including a full process model. Key performance assumptions identified and validated with data. Ideally including quotes for major equipment, utilities, and O&M costs for specific locations. Confidence committing to a set price in a multi-year contract.
Ecosystem safety (e.g., impact to soils and oceans)	Compelling case for why this CDR project does not cause additional ecosystem damage, based on experimental data and models. Company identifies potential risks and presents a plan to generate new data to confirm ecosystem safety at scale across early deployments.	Compelling case for why this CDR project does not cause additional ecosystem damage, based on experimental data. Ideally, the supplier has published ecosystem impact data and responded to feedback from the scientific community regarding potential risks. There is manageable remaining uncertainty around ecosystem impact, and company will actively manage deployments using appropriate ongoing ecosystem monitoring.
Community engagement	Clear plans to collect input from stakeholders impacted by the project at early stages and to improve deployment based on that input.	Has proactively engaged stakeholders and revised deployment plans accordingly. Has or is developing a community benefits plan and an ongoing process to collect and act on community input.
Team and operational capability	There is demonstrated expertise on the team for initial development work. Company has a hiring and/or partnering plan for other aspects of the project.	Company has experienced technical and commercial staff in place and project partners are identified and committed.
Business strategy & financing	Key business case assumptions and risks identified. Preliminary plan established for next steps if the project is successful.	Company can define how the project fits within their strategy and the CDR market and policy landscape. Team has a credible path to securing financing and reaching a final investment decision. Company has supply chain, manufacturing, and risk management strategies.

Continue reading if you would like to apply for a prepurchase. If the offtake track is a better fit, please see our offtake program.

Prepurchase focus areas

While there are many early, exciting projects with meaningful climate impact, we are particularly interested in making prepurchases from companies that address specific gaps in both the field and our portfolio:

If your project does not address one of Frontier’s prepurchase targets, but you meet our criteria for offtake consideration, please review the offtake application requirements.

How we evaluate projects

We look for permanent carbon removal solutions that have the potential to be low-cost and high-volume in the future, even if they’re not today. We use four lenses to make purchasing decisions:

Lens 1: Approach

Does this approach meet our target criteria?

Rigorous external scientific and governance assessment against Frontier’s CDR criteria is the first and most critical qualifying step in Frontier’s purchasing process. Visit our FAQ for a list of approaches that do not meet one or more of our purchasing criteria and are not in focus for our prepurchasing program at this time.

Lens 2: Execution

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

We look for evidence that the team will be able to execute their proposed plan rigorously, quickly, and responsibly. The specifics of what we look for will vary based on the stage of the project, but generally we look for:

Technology readiness level: Is the technology far enough along to make the proposal realistic/plausible? We typically look for an existing proof of concept (i.e., all major elements of the solution are at least at TRL-3+).
Team: Does this team have the expertise and experience to deliver? This could include scientific, technical, operations, manufacturing, commercial, or regulatory expertise depending on the solution.
Delivery timing: When will this project deliver first tons? We prefer earlier delivery (i.e., 2026/2027), even if it means smaller volumes. We rarely purchase from projects with no delivery for 3+ years.
Past and expected learning rates: If this team has applied before, how much progress have they made since, and over what time period? Is this approach fundamentally compatible for fast iteration? How costly is each iteration?
Ambitious but plausible and responsible scaling plans: We are looking for companies that move urgently, but also responsibly and realistically. For most approaches, this likely means increasing scale by no more than 10x per deployment, whereas for others, 100x might be acceptable if the applicant includes a justification for that scaling magnitude.
‘Area under the curve’: How high is the starting cost, and how quickly does it decline? If this approach has a very high starting cost, we’d expect it to have a particularly steep slope such that it’s plausible the team can secure enough demand to scale and become competitive with companies who may be further along today.

Lens 3: Portfolio

Will this purchase help us build a diverse, risk-adjusted portfolio?

We believe it will take a portfolio of CDR solutions and companies to achieve the gigatons of removal required each year. Frontier’s goal is to build a risk-adjusted portfolio that maximizes the likelihood of that happening. This means that there is a possibility that even if a company meets our criteria, we may not make a purchase if, for example, we’re over-indexed on that type of solution.

Lens 4: Acceleration

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

We assess whether a Frontier prepurchase would accelerate a company’s trajectory or the CDR pathway overall:

Does a Frontier prepurchase clearly help an organization get started or reach a critical milestone needed for scaleup?
Does this prepurchase advance the field (e.g. advances technology, research, measurement techniques, business strategies, etc)?

To give you a sense of how we have applied these lenses in the past, please take a look at prepurchases Frontier announced in September 2023 and September 2024.

Review process

You can apply at any time, and Frontier will batch applications for review. Depending on when you submit a pre-application, we expect the time between pre-application submission and announcement to take 3-4 months:

Companies submit a pre-application. This is a short form to help us understand whether your technology is likely to be a fit for this program.
We will screen submissions and invite a subset to submit full applications to minimize time spent applying by projects that likely don’t meet the criteria of this purchase call.
Frontier invites select projects to apply. Applicants will have ~3 weeks to submit a full application. You can view last year’s application template here.
Frontier reviews applications for completeness and basic scientific validity with respect to our criteria. Qualified applications are sent to external experts for scientific, commercial, and governance review.
Frontier sends anonymized review comments to applicants, who will have ~3 days to submit a short response to Frontier (if they choose to do so).
Frontier may request a video meeting with applicants to further discuss their proposal.
Frontier notifies applicants of prepurchase decisions.
Frontier and selectees jointly build application-specific contract terms such as milestones.
Frontier announces selected prepurchases.

Please apply as soon as possible to be considered for the summer announcement.

Submit pre-application

Other considerations

Transparency and confidentiality

If you are invited to submit an application and do so, please be aware that a portion of your application, including project description, high-level cost summary, and measurement approach, will be made public at the conclusion of Frontier’s purchase cycle. We do this because commercial-scale permanent CDR is developing, and we are trying to advance transparency and knowledge-sharing across the ecosystem as it does. Hopefully this will enable impact beyond the dollar amount of any particular purchase we may make.

Examples of what information will be published can be found in our 2023 and 2024 Summer applications published on our GitHub repository. This is in contrast to our 2022 prepurchase cycles when we published each prepurchase application in full.

In the application template, we will clearly specify for which questions we will publish applicants’ responses. The rest of the application information will remain confidential among Frontier staff and our expert review team, who have non-disclosure agreements in place with Frontier. This includes a techno-economic spreadsheet that we will ask all applicants to fill out.

Communication

All communication related to Frontier’s 2025 CDR purchasing cycle should be sent to prepurchase@frontierclimate.com.