383: The Biochar Company Owned by a Data Center Company Owned by Private Equity—w/ Alastair Collier, A Healthier Earth

Are we thinking about biochar financial strategy all wrong? It's not often a good fit for venture capital, but is it actually a great fit for private equity? It might be, at least if you can get the ticket size big enough...

Today's guest is Alastair Collier, Chief R&D Officer at A Healthier Earth, a biochar project developer that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pure DC, a data center project developer, who is supported by Oaktree Capital Management, a private equity firm (which in my understanding, does several other things beyond private equity.)

Alastair explains how A Healthier Earth went down this road, why he's okay with giving up ownership of his company and accepting a management compensation plan rather than looking to a venture-backed exit, and why more biochar project developers should obsess over conventional business metrics rather than why biochar is going to save the world.

Whether one wants to chart the same course or not, it's important for all those who work in carbon removal to know what kinds of deals are possible in what may prove to be a challenging 2026.

Listen up, as Alastair has a lot of valuable advice to share in this one.

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A Healthier Earth

Pure DC

Oatkree Capital Management

Wholly-owned subsidiary (I said "fully" in the intro, which is a synonym but "wholly" is technically more correct)

Private equity

Eddington (the newest Ari Aster film that features some of the politics of building data centers, albeit less urban...)

Deus ex machina

"The Biochar Blueprint: A developers guide to scale"

Philip Lee LLP