Alt Carbon Raises $12 Mn To Fuel Carbon Removal In India

Deeptech startup ALT CARBON has raised $12 Mn (around INR 102.8 Cr) in a seed funding round led by San Francisco-based AI robotics company Physical Intelligence’s founder and chief executive, Lachy Groom.

The round also saw participation from Shastra VC and a clutch of angel investors, including Jason Zhao (PIP Labs), Amrendra Singh (DeHaat), Tanmay Bhat (Indian YouTuber), Arjun Soin (Clinikally), Nakuul Mehta (Actor), Arjun Ramani (Journalist), Advaith Vishwanath (SuperShare) and Rahul Seth (Industrial47).

The Bengaluru-based startup plans to deploy the freshly raised capital in building new projects which enable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) across South Asia. Besides, the company will spend on research and development.

“We will improve our science, conduct advanced R&D, collect high-quality data, create machine learning models that accelerate our operations across the board,” Agarwal said.

How Alt Carbon Is Revitalising Agriculture

Shrey and Sparsh Agarwal founded Alt Carbon in 2023. The startup assists farmers and scientists in utilising dormant lands as carbon removal sinks. It aims to leverage technologies like Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) in making South Asia a hub for CDR. The company runs a project called the Darjeeling Revival Project (DRP) to reduce carbon emissions in the city.

“Our family had been custodians of Darjeeling’s estates for three generations. However, facing bankruptcy and collapse, due to climate change and the pandemic, our family was simply unable to hold on to it,” Shrey said in his post.

Shrey and Sparsh moved to Selim Hill Tea Estate in Darjeeling and discovered that carbon markets can be a big source of income for these heritage tea estates.

Alt Carbon’s flagship initiative, DRP works towards restoring the health of Darjeeling’s iconic tea estates by implementing large-scale carbon removal and sustainable agriculture practices including ERW, minimising emissions in logistics, and scientific measurements of soil.

The startup aims to remove 5 Mn metric tons of Carbon by 2030.

Alt Carbon uses ERW for carbon removal, which involves getting waste basalt rock dust from mines and spreading it across agricultural fields. These volcanic rocks improve soil health and naturally react with rainwater to remove carbon.

The Journey So Far

As per TechCrunch report, Alt Carbon piloted its first project on a 500-acres land owned by the founders’ family tea estate in Darjaleeing. Later, the company scaled up the projects in North Bengal, focusing on rice and bamboo farms.

Last year, Alt Carbon became India’s first company to secure a $500,000 pre-purchase agreement from Frontier to scale carbon removal from India’s tea estates. 

These pre-purchase contracts help early-stage startups to raise capital along with demand certainty needed to scale its business.

As per the company, this capital will support its DRP. Under this agreement, Alt Carbon will receive $500,000 from Frontier for the purchase of high quality durable carbon removal tons, generated via ERW process.

Alt Carbon further disclosed that Stripe, Shopify, Google and Watershed are the participating buyers.

“Carbon removal is the next big manufacturing sector opportunity, and we plan to make India a hub for it by leveraging our unique geographical conditions & the best-in-class scientists from our academic institutions. To make Darjeeling the epicentre of our vision makes it even more meaningful for us,” Shrey said during the agreement.

Besides, Alt Carbon claims to have signed an agreement with Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation for scaling ERW. It also claims to have inked a pact with MOL group to purchase 10,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits.

Why Carbon Removal Is India’s Next Big Climate Bet

The fundraise comes at a time when India is aiming to achieve net-zero emission target by 2070. 

At the back of India making the net zero commitment in 2021, several cleantech startups emerged to contribute in this journey and promote sustainable business models. These startups offer innovative practices ranging from rooftop solar solutions to bio-methanation technology for organic waste management, and carbon removal projects.

Some of these include:

• altM: This startup uses dry plant waste to produce advanced materials that offer sustainable alternatives to conventional products
• Chakr Innovation: The company offers an emission control device that checks pollution at the source and captures harmful particulate matter emissions. 
• Hygenco: It develops green hydrogen and green ammonia production assets for commercial purposes. Hygenco would help Jindal reduce carbon emissions by nearly 2,700 metric tonnes annually
•  Ossus Biorenewables: It offers AI-powered bioreactors that absorb carbon from wastewater produced by industries and supply them with green hydrogen gas. 
• ReNew Power: The unicorn startup is an independent power producer (IPP) of renewable energy using clean sources such as wind, hydro and solar power
• Varaha: The startup helps farmers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices by producing carbon credits. This helps farmers in increasing their revenue and decreasing operating costs

Editor’s Note : The story has been updated to change the headline