Terra Oleo, a Singapore biotechnology company, has emerged from stealth operation with $3.1 million in funding from a group of investors and support from Breakthrough Energy’s Fellows Program. 

As part of this global initiative, Terra Oleo is advancing microbial technology to create sustainable alternatives to palm oil derivatives and cocoa butter for use in food, personal care, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. 

Palm oil and cocoa supply chains are under strain from climate instability, regulatory pressures and limited land. In 2024, cocoa’s end-of-season stocks fell 26% and futures prices reached record highs, while global palm oil exports dropped 5.83% year-over-year amid rising demand and production constraints. These pressures are driving up costs and supply volatility, leaving producers and consumer goods companies in need of alternatives. Terra Oleo’s technology meets this need by reinventing how lipid ingredients are produced. 

Terra Oleo’s tunable platform harnesses precision fermentation to transform agro-industrial waste into palm oil ingredients and cocoa butter alternatives. Backed by synthetic biology and microbial engineering expertise, the platform delivers tailored lipid profiles for palm and cocoa applications, while eliminating energy-intensive refining steps and toxic byproducts of conventional processes.

The company has signed product testing agreements with several global and regional leaders in oleochemicals, food, personal care and cosmetics. With validation underway and demand accelerating, Terra Oleo is preparing to scale from lab to market with products designed to match or surpass conventional performance.

At full scale, Terra Oleo’s technology could eliminate up to 900 million tons of CO₂ annually from palm oil and cocoa supply chains, accelerating decarbonization.

To date, Terra Oleo has raised funding from ADB Ventures, The Radical Fund, Elev8.vc, Better Bite Ventures, a strategic corporate investor from the palm oil industry, and other investors. Terra Oleo was co-founded by Shen Ming Lee, Boon Uranukul and Min Hao Wong, who together bring complementary strengths in science, industry and strategy to advance the company’s mission to decarbonize palm oil and cocoa. 

“We founded Terra Oleo to reinvent how we produce the fats and oils that power our everyday lives,” says Shen Ming Lee, co-founder and CEO of Terra Oleo. “With support from the Breakthrough Energy Fellows program and our incredible investors, we are deeply honored and excited to bring sustainable, scalable alternatives to market and collaborate with partners to decarbonize palm oil and cocoa.”

Terra Oleo was selected to join Breakthrough Energy’s 2025 Fellows Program, which supports early-stage innovators developing technologies with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at gigaton scale. Fellows are selected through a rigorous process to ensure their technologies can reduce emissions at scale. With this support, Terra Oleo will scale from lab to pilot while advancing customer formulation testing and validation.