How one founder plans to save cities from flooding with terraforming robots

San Rafael, a city north of San Francisco, is experiencing significant land subsidence—about half an inch per year—leading to neighborhoods like the Canal District sinking three feet and increasing their flood risk from rising sea levels. Conventional flood protection methods, such as seawalls, are prohibitively expensive for the city, with estimates ranging from $500 million to $900 million. In response, Terranova, a startup led by co-founder and CEO Laurence Allen, proposes an innovative and more affordable solution: raising the land itself using robotic terraforming technology. Terranova estimates it can lift 240 acres of San Rafael by four feet for approximately $92 million, a fraction of the seawall costs. Terranova’s approach involves injecting a slurry made primarily from waste wood mixed with undisclosed materials deep underground (40 to 60 feet) using autonomous robotic injectors. These robots, controlled by proprietary software that models subsurface conditions and optimizes injection patterns, drill wells and deliver the slurry to consolidate the soil and