From a struggling family tea property to an innovative climate enterprise, Akat carbon A seed has raised $ 12 million in a round as it plans to score its carbon dioxide removal in the South Asian nation. Climate-tech startups, which shuts up carbon for thousands of years through increased rock weathering on the farmlands, attracts investment led by Robotics AI company Physical Intelligence, co-founder, Lachi Groom.
The journey began on May 2020 with a Bitwatch home return. Brother -Bahn Shre and Sparsh Aggarwal covered a 16 -hour distance from eastern state of Kolkata to Darjeeling – a city known for the cultivation of tea in the Himalayan leafy foothills – the property of his family was expecting farewell for Salem Hill, who was facing bankruptcy. Instead, the farewell journey planted seeds for Alt Karbonn, which he officially launched in the late 2023.
Initially, they discovered carbon markets as a way to revive their family business and support other tea wealth in the region by generating complementary income. But during their exploration, they discovered the increased rock weathering as an approach, which could change the impact of climate change from the risk of climate change to a extent of climate action.
“Within carbon markets, our realization was that many projects in India, which are more avoidable-based, are of very few quality, and they produce junk credits,” Sparsh said in a special interview.
Last year, Alt Carbon started his pilot around 500 acres of Family Tea Estate on about 500 acres, which he later expanded his scope for rice and bamboo from tea fields in North Bengal. The startup aims to expand up to 500,000 hectares of land.
By 2030, the aim of the startup is to remove 5 million tonnes of carbon from the region, the spurs told Techcrunch.
The waste from mines and mines in ALT Carbon Eastern India in the volcanic fiery province of the Rajmahal trap enhances the rock weathering using the waste basalt rock dust. Rock dust, an waste product from the construction industry, spreads on the farm fields, where it naturally reacts with rainwater to remove carbon dioxide and adds micronutrients to the soil to improve its fertility and health and increase crop yields. When carbon dioxide -containing rainwater interacts with basalt dust, it forms stable bicarbonate ions. They are stored in the soil and eventually flowing into the sea through rivers, where they reside as calcium carbonate, turn off carbon for more than 10,000 years.
To transport special dust from sources to farm fields, the startup depends on rail and diesel trucks and pays for one level rent as these sources are part of the goods transport system of the tea industry. Startup also avoids emissions from dedicated rock processing by relying on waste basalt by existing mining and crushed operation.
Instead of using basalt dust alone, the startup has developed a proprietary combination of basalt with other organic ingredients, which he calls Hari Mati (green soil in Hindi), forbidding farmers to spread on their farm.
Alt carbon estimates that its carbon credit is $ 270 per metric ton, which is much cheaper than direct air capture credit, believing that the cost is around $ 800 per ton. However, he hopes that the startup will reduce the cost within 36 to 48 months.
The startup depends on the three layers of measurement to understand how much rock is happening and how much carbon is being removed, Sri told Techcrunch. It begins with measurement to track weathering progress and then moves to measure the water within the soil, groundwater sampling and monitoring of the river. The third layer ownership uses reactive transport models that help track ions carrying from soil to water bodies. Machine also uses learning-powered modeling to get the number of startup carbon removal.
Alt Carbon says that its models closely follow the functioning prescribed by carbon removal registries, including isometric and priest. He has also received approval from inter -governmental organizations including SBTI, ICVCM and Corsia.
The startup has its own laboratories in Darjeeling and Bangalore and appoint 8 to 10 PhDs with a overall headcon of 25 employees. Its purpose is to score these laboratories and expand your work by installing a hardware studio for better, high quality data collection by analyzing more soil samples and even remote sensing. The startup also planned to deploy the sensor on the ground to achieve more insight at low cost and rapid time. All this will come through that seed round under the leadership of the groom.
Last year, startup secured $ 500,000 East-Kharid by FrontierAnd upgraded market commitment of $ 1 billion led by strip, alphabet, meta, shoppific and McInese. It is also recently A buyer coalition, signed a strategic partnership with NextgenStarted by South Pol and Mitsubishi Corporation, to score its increased rock weathering. The group also included BCG Group, Swiss RE, LGT and UBS. Last month, startup signed Japan’s shipping company, offtake agreement with Mol GroupTo buy 10,000 tonnes of carbon removal credit.
The Alt will distribute its first carbon credit in less than a month through the ALT carbon isometric.
