Biochar Industrial Group has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding to expand a business that converts agricultural waste from African food processors into biochar and carbon-removal credits.
The round was led by BREEGA, with participation from Catalyst Fund, while Mulago Foundation provided non-dilutive funding, the company said Sept. 17.
Lagos-based BIG plans to deploy pyrolysis equipment directly at food-processing factories, turning materials including nut shells, corn cobs, husks and stalks into a stable form of carbon that can remain in soils for hundreds to thousands of years.
The company sells the resulting carbon-removal credits while returning the biochar to agricultural supply chains as a soil amendment. The model is designed to give food processors a new source of revenue from waste that would otherwise have little or negative economic value.
“Africa has natural advantages to lead the most scalable and cost effective biomass-based carbon removal globally,” said Ikenna Nzewi, BIG’s chief executive officer. “By forming true win-win partnerships with agricultural processors to produce biochar, we have the opportunity to turn localised waste liabilities into a transformative global solution.”
BIG is targeting an agricultural waste stream that it estimates at about 1 billion tons of non-edible biomass annually across Africa. The company says the volume is expected to rise as the continent’s population grows and agricultural production expands.
The company uses continuous pyrolysis, heating biomass at more than 600 degrees Celsius without oxygen. The process prevents the carbon absorbed by plants from returning to the atmosphere through decomposition and produces biochar that can be applied to farmland.
BIG said field trials using its biochar have delivered yield increases of as much as 50%.
The company was founded by Nzewi, Chief Technology Officer Uzoma Ayogu and Chief Operating Officer Isaiah Udotong. The three previously worked at Releaf Earth, a Y Combinator-backed agricultural processing company, where they developed industrial machinery, operated four factories and built supply chains connecting thousands of smallholder farmers to processing facilities.
The founders are now applying that industrial experience to the carbon-removal market, where demand for durable carbon removal is increasing as companies seek ways to address emissions that are difficult to eliminate directly.
“BIG is turning a real industrial waste problem into repeatable, audit-grade carbon credits,” said Tosin Faniro-Dada, a partner at BREEGA.
BIG’s approach differs from centralized carbon-removal projects by placing its equipment inside or alongside existing food-processing operations. The company says this can reduce the cost of transporting biomass and create local technical jobs while integrating biochar into existing agricultural networks.
The company intends to use the new capital to expand its factory partnerships and scale its Biochar-as-a-Service model across Sub-Saharan Africa.