Plantd raises $22M to develop green building materials

Oxford-based Plantd has raised $22 million in venture capital to advance its production of carbon-negative building materials made from fast-growing perennial grass.

The Series B funding round “is more than capital ─ it’s momentum,” said Nathan Silvernail, co-founder and chief executive officer of Plantd. "We've proven that sustainability and scalability can grow together, and this next chapter enables us to deliver on a zero-waste vision while creating American manufacturing jobs that drive real climate impact."

The funding follows $20.6 million previously raised and doubles the company’s valuation since its $10 million Series A funding round in 2022. The company did not name the latest investors.

The new capital will be used to develop next-generation production technology designed to scale manufacturing capacity rapidly at Plantd's facility in Granville County. The 100,000-square-foot facility uses automated continuous presses to make structural panels for walls and roofs for the homebuilding market.

As part of the new funding, Plantd has also established a new commercial partnership that includes a co-development contract for Plantd's second product in the building materials market. The company said details of the partnership and the product would be forthcoming soon.

A portion of the new funding will also support the expansion of Plantd's raw material supply chain, targeting 20,000 acres of grass under management by 2030, powered by newly developed AI-vision software and robotic systems.

Scaling both production capacity and raw material access will move Plantd toward its ultimate goal of 100% efficiency and zero-waste manufacturing, the company said.

Also toward that goal, Plantd has an undisclosed new product made from the waste stream of its flagship panel, helping it eliminate waste while also allowing Plantd to diversify beyond the homebuilding market. A second partnership is in development to accelerate the rollout of the waste-based product and to solidify Plantd's position as a leader in sustainable, closed-loop manufacturing.

Plantd's proprietary low-carbon-emissions production technology transforms fast-growing perennial grass into durable, carbon-negative building materials that are intended to outperform competitive products on key attributes, including strength and moisture resistance.

The company’s roofing and wall panels are a direct substitute for traditional plywood known as Oriented Strand Board, or OSB, and require no alternative installation techniques. 

By cultivating fast-growing perennial grass instead of cutting down trees, and by using novel production technology to minimize carbon emissions, Plantd’s structural panels retain 80% of the atmospheric carbon dioxide captured in the field, which is then locked away inside the walls and roofs of new homes. The technology is intended to help reverse the effects of climate change.

The construction industry accounts for almost 40% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to the International Energy Agency.

Plantd’s Series A funding round in 2022 was led by American Family Ventures. At the time, Kyle Beatty, managing director at American Family Ventures, said, "Plantd is creating fundamentally better construction materials that are cost-effective and truly carbon negative. We have been impressed by how they have reinvented every step of the production process from first principles, all the way from input material to logistics."

In 2023, Plantd announced a strategic collaboration with D.R. Horton, the largest homebuilder in America by volume. D.R. Horton was to purchase 250,000 structural panels for wall sheathing and roof decking to be installed in over 1,000 new single-family houses, starting in North Carolina.

Plantd was cofounded in 2021 by Silvernail and Huade Tan ─ engineers who once worked for SpaceX, the rocket launch company founded by Elon Musk ─ and entrepreneur Josh Dorfman. The company has over 110 employees, including seven engineers from SpaceX.

In addition to its Oxford production facility and headquarters, located in a former cigarette factory that closed in 2022, Plantd has a research farm in nearby Stovall and a farm in Roxboro in Person County. The company is working with local farmers to grow its proprietary perennial grass.