Ben Tarbell

Ben Tarbell is a cleantech operator-turned-investor best known as the Co-Founder and CEO of Ebb Carbon, a company pioneering ocean-based carbon dioxide removal that uses electrochemistry to enhance the ocean's natural ability to store CO₂ while reducing local ocean acidity. He co-founded the company alongside Todd Pelman and Dave Hegeman, and testified before a U.S. House Science Committee hearing on carbon removal in September 2024.

Tarbell's operating career is rooted in solar and climate technology. He was VP of Products at SolarCity, where he helped scale the business "from 0 to 375MW+" of installed solar, 50,000+ customers, and 2,500+ employees through its IPO to a $6B+ valuation. He then led the launch of Mosaic's residential solar loan program, now one of the largest sources of U.S. residential solar financing (billions of dollars in loans annually). He later joined Google X (the moonshot factory), leading a team launching new climate technologies and businesses, and earlier led the sustainable-design practice at IDEO and held an energy role at Google.

On the investing side, Tarbell describes having "successfully invested in dozens of climate technology startups as an angel investor as well as while working at climate-focused venture capital firms." He served as an Investor and Investment Advisory Committee member at Powerhouse Ventures (~2018–2022), advised Dandelion Energy (home geothermal), and is a Venture Partner at AiiM Partners, a Palo Alto climate/impact fund. He also serves on the board of GlobalGiving and has been associated with GRID Alternatives.

Tarbell holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University and an MS in Mechanical Engineering (Design) and an MBA, both from Stanford University.

• Invests almost exclusively in climate and cleantech: energy, carbon removal, water/oceans, agriculture, and technology that makes industries more resource-efficient.
• As an angel, backs early-stage (seed) founders in climate hardware and software, drawing on deep operating experience scaling solar and hardware businesses.
• Through AiiM Partners, aligns with the firm's stated thesis of backing "technology companies making industries more resource-efficient" and "differentiated technologies gaining market traction faster than their peers," across oceans/water, air/energy, and land/agriculture — targeting top-quartile financial returns alongside measurable climate/impact outcomes.
• Values founders who can take science and hardware to commercial scale — reflecting his own path from SolarCity/Mosaic operations to founding a carbon-removal company.