Julia Reichelstein, CEO of a startup working to address the pollution that is worsening climate change, summarized in one word the impact on her business when it won a major financial commitment from Microsoft: “Revolutionary.”
A 2025 agreement with Microsoft will pay Reichelstein’s Houston-based Vaulted Deep to store 4.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, preventing them from entering the atmosphere.
The deal is part of an expansive plan by Microsoft to offset the carbon it emitted since its launch in 1975 and to hit carbon negative emissions by 2030. Microsoft also aims to grow the carbon-dioxide removal sector to “avert the worst social, economic, and environmental impacts” of climate change.
Neither Reichelstein nor Microsoft will say how much money the contract is worth, but experts estimated its value at potentially $1 billion.
