At the 2025 TIME100 Summit on April 23 in New York City, leaders from the global TIME100 community gathered to spotlight solutions and encourage action toward a better world, bringing together a diverse group of speakers across business, health and science, AI, culture, and more.
Supporting partner XPRIZE – whose mission is to inspire and empower humanity to achieve breakthroughs that accelerate an abundant and equitable future for all – chose the TIME100 Summit as the perfect moment to award its largest prize ever: the $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, to support the fight for our climate.
Peter H. Diamandis, Founder and Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, graced the stage before a star-studded audience to describe this significance.
"XPRIZE sets audacious and hopefully achievable goals, challenging scientists and entrepreneurs to [solve] the world's biggest problems. That's our mission. To make the impossible, possible," shared Diamandis.
"[Since I started the foundation 30 years ago,] we've announced 30 competitions with $520 million in [incentives] that have driven about $10 billion in research and development," continued Diamandis. "Four years ago this week, on Earth Day, we announced our largest prize [of $100 million to challenge] the world to develop technology that could remove gigatons of carbon from our atmosphere and oceans."
And thus, a race was born. 1,300 teams from 88 countries competed for the $100 million, pioneering solutions across four key pathways: air, ocean, land, and rocks. 20 exceptional finalists from 11 countries successfully removed 1,000 net tons of CO2 over the last year, and proved their solutions can scale sustainably – and the top 6 teams were in attendance, joining Diamandis onstage for a celebratory video showcasing their groundbreaking work.
Diamandis then revealed the five runner-up awardees: NetZero, Vaulted Deep, and UNDO Carbon earned $15M, $8M, and $5M, respectively. Two XFACTOR awards of $1M each went to Planetary and Project Hajar. Diamandis praised each teams' extraordinary work. "It really takes boldness to step into these competitions, and courage to keep working all the way to the end. So to our winners, we're proud of you. Thank you for not giving up," he said, igniting applause from all corners of the room.
Then came the moment everyone was waiting for. “And finally,” said Diamandis, as the room hushed, “we're honored to introduce our grand prize winner of $50 million cash, the largest check we've ever had the pleasure to write: Mati Carbon, and its founder, Shantanu Agarwal."
Beaming onstage, Agarwal shared, "On behalf of Mati Carbon, I want to thank XPRIZE for creating this fundamentally unique and catalytic competition, which has created the carbon removal industry [as we know it] today."
He added, "[This money is large and exciting. And comes with a lot of responsibility. I represent the smallholder farmers who are the least responsible yet most vulnerable to climate change]." Mati Carbon’s deployments bolster farmers’ livelihoods through improved soil health, reduced agricultural inputs, and increased income at zero cost to them. Agarwal emphasized that "Mati Carbon is committed to increasing the incomes of 100 million smallholder farmer families through enhanced rock weathering – a planetary-scale solution for climate adaptation and gigaton-level carbon removal for all humankind."
In a heartfelt closing, Agarwal expressed deep gratitude. "[To the Mati Carbon team for working incredibly hard, our families who supported us through crazy travel and long nights, and to our 16,000 partner farmers already, in India, Zambia, and Tanzania who trusted us to do this work on their lands]."
With that, the room erupted in applause, celebrating not just a victory for Mati Carbon, but a milestone in humanity’s fight to protect our planet.
