MOFarm, a student startup paying dairy farmers to capture and sell their methane emissions, made UC Berkeley history on March 27 as the first team to place in the ACC InVenture Prize. The Shark Tank-style pitch competition, hosted by the University of Notre Dame, brings together the brightest innovators from fourteen ACC universities. MOFarm won the $10,000 second-place prize.
The team stood out for their dynamic energy and unique concept, which was born from SCET’s “Regenerative Ventures: Build Innovations for a Better Future” Challenge Lab course taught by Rana Kanaan and fueled by Omar Yaghi’s 2025 Nobel Prize-winning chemistry. Their ACC success builds on their momentum from the past year – placing in Collider Cup, participating in Skydeck’s Pad-13 incubator and the Big Ideas program, and now pivoting to full-scale pilots.
Bringing backgrounds together
MOFarm’s team comprises CEO Tom Blake, CPO Zac Gibson (Architecture and Structural Engineering ‘28), CTO Ethan Foong (Data Science and Computer Science ‘26), and COO Ibrahim Noon (Economics and Data Science). All come from diverse backgrounds – Tom from the U.K., Noon from Pakistan, Zac from Australia, and Ethan from California – and brought a fusion of ideas and skills when they met in the Regenerative Ventures lab.
Ethan highlighted how combining perspectives through the SCET’s Innovation Collider model defined his experience with the team. “Everyone, from undergraduate freshmen to Ph.D. students, are interested in entrepreneurship. Noon had his own startup, and he worked in KPMG carbon markets. Zac is a structural engineer and an architecture major. Thomas is a student abroad, and many students come from abroad specifically for Berkeley’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. I’m a data science and computer science guy. And when we collide with each other, we come up with something great.”
In fact, it was Noon’s background that inspired the team to combine their environmental and farming interests with Berkeley’s rising materials science research in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).
“I was raised on my dad’s dairy farm, which went bankrupt,” Noon said. “From working in carbon farming markets at KPMG, I had an understanding of how you can use carbon credits as offsets at different efficiencies and make money out of it. This idea became a use case for application of metal-organic frameworks.”
Technology shaped by SCET
Despite their diverse areas of knowledge coming into the project, the MOFarm team emphasized how essential Regenerative Ventures and SCET were in teaching them to be entrepreneurs.
“I was adjacently interested in entrepreneurship, and Regenerative Ventures was the first SCET class I’d ever taken,” Zac said. “The supportive environment created was the ‘perfect storm’ to be able to come out of my shell and express ideas. Instead of talking about doing a startup, you just go out and do it. It pushes you to challenge yourself and jump in with both feet.”
“The Challenge Lab builds a startup, going from zero to one,” Noon said. “You go through the ideation phase, market validation, technical validation, and interviews, and you learn a lot. I had done a startup in the past, but I missed out on a lot of stuff – which I realized through SCET was actually really important.”
The team shouted out Rana Kanaan for her support and mentorship, alongside Jennifer Nice, Joo Ae Chu, Darren Cooke, Laura Hassner, Oliver Reilly, Big Ideas, and the eHub. Alongside Regenerative Ventures, Tom is also currently taking Technology Entrepreneurship, and the A. Richard Newton Lecture Series with Ethan and Noon.
“Everyone at SCET feels like family,” Ethan said. “SCET’s environment is something a lot of universities don’t have, and we’re grateful to be taking advantage of it. From blockchain to tech entrepreneurship to regenerative ventures, they offer some of the most transformative classes in understanding not only how the Bay Area and Silicon Valley work, but also how to prepare for entrepreneurship as a career beyond college.”
Milestones and momentum
Pitching on the national-level ACC InVenture show brought MOFarm new opportunities. “It was incredible to be onstage with the brightest startups to come out of all the universities within the ACC, going from AI to new medical devices to robotics,” Ethan said. “I could see myself falling in love with every idea that was on there, so we were very grateful to have placed.”
The team plans to use their prize money to build their prototype, aiming for an operational barn with a proof of concept capture system by the end of May. Once the barn is set up, uptake with farmers is simple because MOFarm owns and operates their technology at no additional cost to the farmer.
Expanding with MOFarm is a chance at success. “The growth market is insane,” Noon said. “With our business model, we’re not selling to farmers, we’re just generating extra money for the farmers while capturing gas and selling it in renewable gas markets and in the grid.”
This is more crucial than ever right now – Ethan explained that farmers are going through extreme rates of bankruptcy, with 46% of dairy herds having disbanded in the past decade. As a climate dynamics researcher, he emphasized the additional importance of tackling emissions of methane, “one of the most potent pollutants in the atmosphere.”
Expanding with MOFarm is a chance at success. “The growth market is insane,” Noon said. “With our business model, we’re not selling to farmers, we’re just generating extra money for the farmers while capturing gas and selling it in renewable gas markets and in the grid.”
From Berkeley to beyond
“MOFarm is a concept that was born at Berkeley,” Ethan summarized. “We started in a Challenge Lab, fostered entrepreneurial ideas through the Collider Method, used Berkeley accelerator programs and Nobel Prize-winning chemistry, competed in the campus-wide [Collider Cup] and the regional [ACC] competition. The question is, where can we go next? That’s something you’ll have to stay tuned for.”
Interested in joining the MOFarm team? Email contactmofarm@gmail.com.
Watch MOFarm pitch:
Watch MOFarm’s Q&A with the ACC InVenture judges:
MOFarm, a student startup paying dairy farmers to capture and sell their methane emissions, made UC Berkeley history on March 27 as the first team to place in the ACC InVenture Prize. The Shark Tank-style pitch competition, hosted by the University of Notre Dame, brings together the brightest innovators from fourteen ACC universities. MOFarm won the $10,000 second-place prize.
The team stood out for their dynamic energy and unique concept, which was born from SCET’s “Regenerative Ventures: Build Innovations for a Better Future” Challenge Lab course taught by Rana Kanaan and fueled by Omar Yaghi’s 2025 Nobel Prize-winning chemistry. Their ACC success builds on their momentum from the past year – placing in Collider Cup, participating in Skydeck’s Pad-13 incubator and the Big Ideas program, and now pivoting to full-scale pilots.
Bringing backgrounds together
MOFarm’s team comprises CEO Tom Blake, CPO Zac Gibson (Architecture and Structural Engineering ‘28), CTO Ethan Foong (Data Science and Computer Science ‘26), and COO Ibrahim Noon (Economics and Data Science). All come from diverse backgrounds – Tom from the U.K., Noon from Pakistan, Zac from Australia, and Ethan from California – and brought a fusion of ideas and skills when they met in the Regenerative Ventures lab.
Ethan highlighted how combining perspectives through the SCET’s Innovation Collider model defined his experience with the team. “Everyone, from undergraduate freshmen to Ph.D. students, are interested in entrepreneurship. Noon had his own startup, and he worked in KPMG carbon markets. Zac is a structural engineer and an architecture major. Thomas is a student abroad, and many students come from abroad specifically for Berkeley’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. I’m a data science and computer science guy. And when we collide with each other, we come up with something great.”
In fact, it was Noon’s background that inspired the team to combine their environmental and farming interests with Berkeley’s rising materials science research in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).
“I was raised on my dad’s dairy farm, which went bankrupt,” Noon said. “From working in carbon farming markets at KPMG, I had an understanding of how you can use carbon credits as offsets at different efficiencies and make money out of it. This idea became a use case for application of metal-organic frameworks.”
Technology shaped by SCET
Despite their diverse areas of knowledge coming into the project, the MOFarm team emphasized how essential Regenerative Ventures and SCET were in teaching them to be entrepreneurs.
“I was adjacently interested in entrepreneurship, and Regenerative Ventures was the first SCET class I’d ever taken,” Zac said. “The supportive environment created was the ‘perfect storm’ to be able to come out of my shell and express ideas. Instead of talking about doing a startup, you just go out and do it. It pushes you to challenge yourself and jump in with both feet.”
“The Challenge Lab builds a startup, going from zero to one,” Noon said. “You go through the ideation phase, market validation, technical validation, and interviews, and you learn a lot. I had done a startup in the past, but I missed out on a lot of stuff – which I realized through SCET was actually really important.”
The team shouted out Rana Kanaan for her support and mentorship, alongside Jennifer Nice, Joo Ae Chu, Darren Cooke, Laura Hassner, Oliver Reilly, Big Ideas, and the eHub. Alongside Regenerative Ventures, Tom is also currently taking Technology Entrepreneurship, and the A. Richard Newton Lecture Series with Ethan and Noon.
“Everyone at SCET feels like family,” Ethan said. “SCET’s environment is something a lot of universities don’t have, and we’re grateful to be taking advantage of it. From blockchain to tech entrepreneurship to regenerative ventures, they offer some of the most transformative classes in understanding not only how the Bay Area and Silicon Valley work, but also how to prepare for entrepreneurship as a career beyond college.”
Milestones and momentum
Pitching on the national-level ACC InVenture show brought MOFarm new opportunities. “It was incredible to be onstage with the brightest startups to come out of all the universities within the ACC, going from AI to new medical devices to robotics,” Ethan said. “I could see myself falling in love with every idea that was on there, so we were very grateful to have placed.”
The team plans to use their prize money to build their prototype, aiming for an operational barn with a proof of concept capture system by the end of May. Once the barn is set up, uptake with farmers is simple because MOFarm owns and operates their technology at no additional cost to the farmer.
Expanding with MOFarm is a chance at success. “The growth market is insane,” Noon said. “With our business model, we’re not selling to farmers, we’re just generating extra money for the farmers while capturing gas and selling it in renewable gas markets and in the grid.”
This is more crucial than ever right now – Ethan explained that farmers are going through extreme rates of bankruptcy, with 46% of dairy herds having disbanded in the past decade. As a climate dynamics researcher, he emphasized the additional importance of tackling emissions of methane, “one of the most potent pollutants in the atmosphere.”
Expanding with MOFarm is a chance at success. “The growth market is insane,” Noon said. “With our business model, we’re not selling to farmers, we’re just generating extra money for the farmers while capturing gas and selling it in renewable gas markets and in the grid.”
From Berkeley to beyond
“MOFarm is a concept that was born at Berkeley,” Ethan summarized. “We started in a Challenge Lab, fostered entrepreneurial ideas through the Collider Method, used Berkeley accelerator programs and Nobel Prize-winning chemistry, competed in the campus-wide [Collider Cup] and the regional [ACC] competition. The question is, where can we go next? That’s something you’ll have to stay tuned for.”
Interested in joining the MOFarm team? Email contactmofarm@gmail.com.
Watch MOFarm pitch:
Watch MOFarm’s Q&A with the ACC InVenture judges: