“San Rafael has the Bay Area’s largest flood problem,” Laurence Allen explains. “It’s a city of about 60,000 people facing a $500 to $900 million flood problem. When you run the math on that, the protection is just unaffordable.”
Laurence hopes to help San Rafael and other coastal cities lift themselves out of flood danger using technology developed by Levitree, a Bakar Labs company of which he is COO. In short, Levitree uses robots to lift a property, and everything built on it, by injecting wood slurries deep beneath the surface, where it’s prevented from decomposing back into carbon dioxide. “Reshape the World” is their motto.
Laurence and his co-founders CEO Trip Allen and CTO Cole Johnson hail from San Rafael, so they’ve personally witnessed the devastating and ongoing threat of flooding. Despite hiring several rounds of flood consultants, the city had no viable solution; some advisors even suggested that the city might need to partially abandon parts of its downtown area. The Levitree team, driven by both a personal connection and technical curiosity, began looking for a way to help. That’s when they had what Laurence described as a “lightning moment.”
Trip, who had been researching biochar and biomass treatment technologies, had previously explored underground injection as a method of carbon sequestration. Once the team realized that injecting biomass underground could also physically lift the land above—potentially offering a defense against flooding—it became clear that one environmental solution could be paired with another to help save their hometown. To test the idea, they used a concrete pump and validated that it was physically possible. As their research dug deeper—both technically and literally—they made an exciting discovery that confirmed two problems could be solved at once.
“The quantity of waste biomass that California is forced to get rid of every year is strangely and serendipitously almost exactly the scale that would be needed to elevate all of California’s flood-prone areas on an annual basis,” Trip notes.
That insight laid the foundation for Levitree’s dual-mission approach: fighting coastal flooding while sequestering carbon. Laurence graduated from UC Berkeley in 2024 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Cole, a close friend of Laurence since high school, joined the team to lead computational modeling. “I started working on the actual injection modeling, with how the wood slurry propagates underground during injection,” he says. The challenge? “If you imagine what’s underneath your feet, it’s not much—but it’s made up of all these reactive, shifting minerals that affect how the slurry moves,” he explains. To address the issue, the team developed AI modeling systems that update their understanding of underground geology in real time during each injection.
Their breakthrough led to a reimagined business model focused on developing software and hardware tools that contractors anywhere could use. One of the team’s biggest breakthroughs was developing remote-controlled rigs, which now allow them to monitor and adjust injection sites from anywhere in the world—a key step toward scalability.
That global model is already being put into action. Levitree has been injecting at a permitted pilot site in Sacramento, a project Laurence helped lead while still taking 19 units at UC Berkeley and staying in hotels to make it all work. They’re also conducting a structural certification project in Wilton, California, where an engaged engineering team is helping validate the stability and performance of their underground injections. At the same time, the team is preparing to open a new engineering center in Berkeley, further solidifying their transition from pilot testing to scalable deployment.
Much of that momentum has been supported by their time at Bakar Labs, where Levitree became one of the first members of the Community Access Bakar Labs (CABL) program, led by Gino Segre. Designed for startups without lab space, CABL offers access to desks, meetings, events, and a robust support network. “The community is so scientifically advanced and knowledgeable, and you get in a room with people who can ask deeply engaging questions,” Laurence says. “Just mentioning Bakar Labs has opened doors—some VCs immediately take interest the moment they hear we’re part of the community.” That credibility, bolstered by their time at Bakar Labs, has gone a long way.
What began as a casual pitch outside a SpaceX food truck quickly turned into a surge of investor interest. With a financial runway of about two years, the team projects they’ll reach first profitability by 2027, a notable milestone for a climate tech company with field-based operations.
With investor momentum behind them and pilot projects underway, Levitree is focused on turning innovation into long-term impact. A solution for a single city has evolved into a scalable platform with the potential to help communities everywhere adapt to climate change—one injection at a time.