microTERRA – a CATAL1.5°T accelerator success story

The start-up microTERRA is making waves in the climate tech sector with their innovative approach to agricultural wastewater treatment and sustainable food ingredients.

Led by Marissa Cuevas, founder and CEO, the dynamic start-up microTERRA is transforming challenges into opportunities by producing food ingredients to improve people’s health while cleaning water. The CATAL1.5°T accelerator programme supports them in addressing one of the most critical environmental challenges of our time: water sustainability and conservation.

The journey of microTERRA began in 2017 when Marissa Cuevas learned about the impending water crisis and its connection to our food systems. “I concentrated all my efforts on solving agricultural wastewater, more specific nutrient runoff, after realising the scale of the issue,” Marissa recalls, “I’m a circular economy fanatic, my vision is to take those nutrients out of the water to create more food for our planet, and most importantly to incorporate this solution directly into our food system to stop pollution at the source and preserve our environment.” Inspired by biomimicry, she discovered that using living organisms to address these challenges could provide powerful solutions. This revelation led to the birth of microTERRA, a Delaware C-Corp operating in Mexico through a subsidiary and dedicated to cleaning water and creating sustainable food ingredients.

MicroTERRA’s vision is ambitious and straightforward: to become a technology platform that leverages biotechnology to create sustainable high-value ingredients that drive regenerative agriculture practices which clean water. Their primary innovation involves Lemna, an aquatic plant that absorbs significant amounts of nitrogen from wastewater, then transforms it into functional ingredients which help create low or zero sugar food products. “Every kilogram of nitrogen has a climate impact equivalent to 4.30739 kgCO2eq. With each hectare of our Lemna growth system, we can remove 58 kg of nitrogen daily, which translates to 250 kg of CO2eq,” explains Marissa. By utilising the excess nitrogen from agricultural wastewater, microTERRA avoids the need for additional nitrogen fertilisers, creating a win-win for both the environment and the food industry.

Navigating the start-up landscape is challenging, which is why CATAL1.5°T offers support for visionary start-ups with impact-driven solutions from the Latin American climate tech ecosystem. Especially those who address local challenges at the source, like microTERRA. “While water scarcity, nitrogen pollution, and health are the biggest issues Mexico faces, there’s still a lack of awareness and incentives to make a difference at scale. Participating in the CATAL1.5°T accelerator is exposing us to a larger group of corporations, investors, and public organizations who can support our mission,” shares Marissa. The collaboration has been instrumental in refining microTERRA’s approach and expanding their reach, unlocking new strategic partnerships and providing specialist coaching to identify growth routes.

“While water scarcity, nitrogen pollution, and health are the biggest issues Mexico faces, there’s still a lack of awareness and incentives to make a difference at scale. Participating in the CATAL1.5°T accelerator is exposing us to a larger group of corporations, investors, and public organizations who can support our mission.”
- Marissa Cuevas, founder and CEO microTERRA

Together, we work on maximising, calculating, and communicating the start-ups environmental and social impact. Especially, calculating impact and ESG metrics is not straightforward, but it is essential. CATAL1.5°T implementing partner Climate-KIC has helped microTERRA to map its lifecycle, better understand its impacts and find effective ways to communicate them.

Agriculture uses 85% of Latin America’s freshwater, and it's the main water pollutant because 60% of nitrogen fertilizer used ends up as a contaminant. If left untreated, wastewater causes harmful algal blooms, eutrophication, and dead zones in the ocean. microTERRA therefore operates in regions of Mexico with high water risk, such as Colon, Querétaro. These areas face severe water challenges, with hydroponic greenhouses producing significant wastewater effluent with high nitrate concentrations. microTERRA’s Lemna growth and water treatment system effectively address this issue, as Marissa explains: “Our systems reduce water pollution, preserve freshwater resources, and can save billions in health and environmental remediation costs,” notes Marissa.

But water pollution isn’t the only challenge, microTERRA tackles. Lemna transforms the absorbed nitrogen into functional and sustainable ingredients, which help lower sugar content in food and beverages . They also allow brands to offset their water and carbon footprint. Their latest product, MASK, is a natural clean label extract designed to mask unwanted off-notes and bitterness from high-intensity sweeteners and other substances. “MASK has been successfully tested with sweeteners like stevia , masking their bitterness and enhancing the naturality of formulations,” says Marissa. This product exemplifies microTERRA’s commitment to creating functional ingredients that benefit both health and the environment.