Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.
What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.
Read it carefully. Employee counts are self-reported and mix full-time scientists with sales staff, and a pathway’s headcount is not a claim about tons delivered, cost, or durability.
What the chart shows today
377 biochar companies dominate the scatter, but they cluster in the bottom-left corner: lots of dots, small headcounts each. Compare that to DAC at 125 companies, where the points spread vertically into the hundreds-of-employees range, and Enabling Tech at 179, which stretches highest of all. Mineralization (42), Ocean CDR (42), Enhanced Weathering (33), and Biomass Burial (31) barely register as pathways at all, with most plotted as solo dots near the origin. The shape tells you where capital has actually concentrated: a handful of DAC and tooling players carry the employee weight, while biochar is a long tail of tiny operators. If you are sizing the industry by people rather than press releases, four pathways effectively do not exist yet.
Chart refreshed from our CDR Company Directory. We publish a data-viz read like this twice a week.