Some startups make noise. Woodchuck made energy, and just raised $3.75M in seed funding to keep that power flowing.
Todd Thomas isn’t just building a company, he’s building a smarter biomass supply chain from the dirt up. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Woodchuck is flipping construction and wood waste into high-quality biomass fuel using AI with sharper vision than most founders’ pitch decks. While the industry’s still talking about circular economies, Woodchuck’s already moving wood waste through a closed-loop system that’s feeding America’s clean energy grid and making carbon regret its comeback tour.
Let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t your average “green tech” slide deck powered by vague promises and seed-round optimism. This is real innovation grounded in machine learning, generative AI, and waste-sorting hardware that works harder than a contractor on Red Bull. Their proprietary Woodchuck.ai platform doesn’t just scan, it learns. It sees, sorts, and sends wood debris into a second life as biomass fuel, with the receipts to back it up. Over 100 tons of CO2 diverted. Half a billion BTUs of green energy generated. All in six months. That’s not a prototype. That’s a proof point.
This round, led by Mason Fink and backed by NorthStar Clean Energy (a CMS Energy company), Alloy Partners (formerly High Alpha Innovation), and Beckett Industries, is a nod to execution, not just ambition. These investors didn’t just write checks. They co-architected the blueprint with Thomas from day one, building the startup in tandem with the market it’s serving. That’s the kind of ecosystem play you usually only hear about after the acquisition.
Behind it all? A founder with more than just credentials. Todd Thomas brings the receipts: Fortune 100 pedigree, AI muscle from Stanley Black & Decker, startup chops with Y Combinator, and a mind that’s turned out not one but two #1 bestsellers on energy transformation. Oh, and he opened Michigan’s first all-electric, AI-powered biomass processing facility in May 2025, with Governor Gretchen Whitmer there to cut the ribbon. Fourteen jobs created. Tons of waste processed. And a roadmap for how tech should serve sustainability, not sell it.
Woodchuck isn’t just converting wood waste. It’s converting an entire industry’s excuse-making into accountability. For construction companies, manufacturers, and bioenergy producers staring down emissions goals and landfill quotas, this isn’t an option, it’s the out. A 30% reduction in waste-hauling costs doesn’t hurt either.
This is what it looks like when AI leaves the lab and gets dirt under its nails. A biomass platform that doesn’t care about the noise, it’s here for the results. And the next phase? Scaling nationally, one wood chip at a time.
