To investigate our proposed reaction, initial studies focused on the optimizing of the reactions condition for the direct deoxygenative C-C coupling of benzoic acid (1a) and gem-diborylalkene (2') which was chosen as the model reaction (please see the SI for details). The optimized reaction conditions include 1 mol% of [Ir(dF(CF 3 ) ppy) 2 (dtbbpy)]PF 6 as a photocatalyst, 1.2 eq K 2 HPO 4 as a base, and 1.1 equiv. triphenylphosphine Ph 3 P as an O-transfer reagent in dichloromethane (DCM)/H2O (4:1, v/v). Pleasedly, under these standard conditions, the corresponding ketone (3) was obtained in 69 % yield.