methane
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Noah Helman
Noah Helman is the co-founder and CEO of Industrial Microbes (iMicrobes), an Alameda, California synthetic biology company that engineers the central metabolism of microbes so they can eat cheap, renewable feedstocks - ethanol and methane - and spit out the chemicals normally pumped from petroleum. A Stanford applied-physics PhD who spent roughly a decade in physics labs before crossing into biology, Helman co-founded the company in 2014 with two fellow alumni of the biofuels startup LS9. iMicrobes targets drop-in, cost-competitive, net-zero versions of acrylic acid (for paints and adhesives) and acrylonitrile (for carbon fiber). The company went through Y Combinator's W15 batch, holds more than 20 patents, raised a $10M+ seed round in late 2024, and in 2025 announced it had scaled production of 100% bio-based, high-purity acrylic acid.
Josh Browne
Josh Browne is the co-founder and CEO of M2X Energy, a Rockledge, Florida climate-tech company that converts wasted methane from flares and landfills into low-carbon methanol using modular, truck-transportable gas-to-liquids systems built around repurposed internal-combustion engines. M2X grew out of his Columbia PhD dissertation, was founded in 2020 by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and raised a $40 million Series B in 2024 (about $62.5 million total). Before M2X, Browne founded a data-science firm, Rho AI, that was acquired by General Motors. He started as the company's CTO and now runs it as CEO.
William Foiles
William Foiles is the co-founder and CEO of Project Canary, a Denver climate-tech company that builds high-fidelity sensors and an enterprise data platform to measure, verify, and report methane emissions across the oil and gas value chain. A CFA charterholder with finance roots at Goldman Sachs and a stack of Stanford degrees, Foiles bet that the fastest way to fight climate change was not protest but precision - measuring the invisible 25% of warming that comes from methane so operators can actually fix it.
Molly Morse
Dr. Molly Morse is the CEO and co-founder of Mango Materials, a Vacaville, California-based startup that turns waste methane into biodegradable PHA biopolymers. Founding the company in 2010 on the back of her Stanford PhD research, Morse has spent over a decade building a circular bioeconomy solution that converts a potent greenhouse gas into a commercially viable plastic replacement — branded as YOPP pellets. She has won the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge (2012), the C3E Entrepreneurship Award (2018), and was selected as an Unreasonable Fellow in 2022.