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Breakthrough Energy Ventures Co-Leads $100 Million Round for Pivot Bio Nitrogen Microbes
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Breakthrough Energy Ventures — Bill Gates's climate investment fund — co-led a $100 million Series C funding round for Pivot Bio at a $410 million valuation. Pivot Bio engineers naturally occurring soil microbes to colonise corn roots and produce nitrogen on demand, replacing a portion of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. Synthetic nitrogen production accounts for roughly 1.5 percent of global CO₂ emissions and runoff causes widespread aquatic dead zones. Pivot Bio's microbes also reduce farmers' input costs while improving yields, creating a commercial incentive aligned with environmental benefit.
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Related Accomplishments
2026
Gates Foundation Trust Sells Off the Last of Its Microsoft Stock
In the first quarter of 2026, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust sold its remaining Microsoft shares, fully exiting a position in the very company that created Gates's fortune — capping a long, deliberate diversification away from the stock. The endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy, managed separately from its grant-making through Cascade, is now anchored instead by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, railroads, and heavy-equipment makers. The sale underscored how thoroughly Gates's giving had decoupled from Microsoft's day-to-day fortunes.
2026
Gates's Charitable Endowment Is Now Led by Berkshire, Not Microsoft
By 2026, the publicly disclosed stock portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust — the endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy — was led not by Microsoft but by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, Canadian National Railway, Caterpillar, and Deere. Decades of diversification, plus Warren Buffett's stock gifts, left it concentrated in railroads, waste, heavy equipment, and Buffett's conglomerate, while Microsoft — the source of the original fortune — had largely been sold down. The unglamorous, value-oriented mix reflects the long stewardship of Gates's money manager, Michael Larson, through Cascade Investment.
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