The Colossal Foundation and the IUCN Species Survival Commission launched a four-year, $4 million partnership to accelerate species conservation. The foundation is the nonprofit arm of Dallas-based de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences.

Tools at the initiative’s disposal include a new grant program for neglected species and Colossal Biosciences technology. The technology encompasses Colossal’s genome sequencing, gene editing, biobanking and AI-assisted reproductive capabilities.

“Extinction prevention is a race against time, and the people closest to threatened species should have access to every responsible tool that can help them win that race,” Matt James, executive director of The Colossal Foundation, said in a statement.

“Our goal is not simply to respond to extinction, but to help prevent it — and to turn today’s most promising technologies into practical, widely available tools for species recovery,” James said.

Assessing species conservation

The Switzerland-based IUCN commission comprises more than 11,000 experts in 186 countries. The commission called its Red List of Threatened Species the world’s most comprehensive source of information about species conservation. The list features more than 49,500 threatened species.

Vivek Menon, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, said in a statement that the organization has spent more than 70 years “building the scientific foundation the world relies on to understand which species are in trouble and why.”

Despite the volume of the Red List, most of the world’s biodiversity has not been gauged, the commission said. Its partnership with The Colossal Foundation will use data, AI-enabled tools and other technology to expand the list and identify promising conservation-related technology.

“What we have often lacked is the capacity to move at the scale the crisis demands,” Menon said. “This partnership with The Colossal Foundation gives our network access to tools and resources that can help us direct this knowledge to threatened species and slow down the threat of extinction.”

Supporting neglected species

The partners said they seek to help species that many conservation groups overlook. This includes certain fungi, plants, invertebrates, fishes and reptiles.

The grant program will award money to benefit neglected species, the partners said. In addition, the partners will create a global education campaign about species conservation and biodiversity.

Building on previous collaborations

This isn’t the first time The Colossal Foundation has teamed up with the IUCN commission.

The foundation supported the Reverse the Red species preservation campaign, sponsored by the commission and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums. It also backed the commission’s group dedicated to Asian elephants. Furthermore, the foundation worked with the commission and the Samoan Conservation Society to save certain species of pigeons and doves.

Ben Lamm, co-founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences, said collaborating with the IUCN commission “is both a privilege and a call to action.”

“Together, we can break down the barriers between scientific innovation and frontline conservation — putting powerful technologies into the hands of experts around the world and deploying them with the urgency, ambition and scale the extinction crisis demands,” Lamm said in a statement.

Established by Colossal Biosciences in 2024, The Colossal Foundation boosted its funding to $100 million last year.