Biochar Industrial Group (BIG), a climate technology company developing industrial-scale carbon removal solutions for Sub-Saharan Africa, has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding to scale its Biochar-as-a-Service model across the continent.
The funding round was led by BREEGA, with participation from The Catalyst Fund, while the Mulago Foundation provided additional non-dilutive funding.
BIG said the capital would accelerate partnerships with food-processing factories, enabling the company to convert agricultural waste into biochar and carbon removal credits while creating an additional revenue stream for African food processors.
BIG is turning Africa’s agricultural waste, carbon emissions and soil degradation challenges into a commercial opportunity.
Africa generates an estimated one billion tonnes of non-edible agricultural biomass annually, including nut shells, cobs, husks and stalks. BIG said much of this waste eventually decomposes, releasing carbon dioxide that had previously been absorbed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
The company expects the volume of agricultural biomass to increase significantly as Africa’s population expands in the coming decades.
At the same time, BIG said Africa’s cultivated soils are under growing pressure from overuse and dependence on synthetic fertilisers, with between 30 and 60 kilogrammes of nutrients removed from every hectare annually.
It cited projections that as much as half of Africa’s arable land could become unusable by 2050, potentially affecting more than 485 million people.
BIG’s Biochar-as-a-Service model involves partnering directly with food processors to convert low- or negative-value agricultural waste into biochar through continuous pyrolysis.
The process heats organic material at temperatures above 600°C in an oxygen-deprived environment, producing a carbon-rich material capable of storing carbon for hundreds to thousands of years, according to the company.
BIG said the process also generates independently auditable carbon removal credits while producing biochar that can be applied to degraded agricultural soils.
Under its model, the company co-locates pyrolysis units within food-processing facilities, modifying the equipment to suit local feedstocks and operating conditions.
The units are staffed locally, allowing food processors to reduce waste-disposal costs while sharing in the resulting revenues, BIG said.
The company also intends to route the resulting biochar through existing agribusiness supply chains for use on farmland.
The model, according to BIG, could create skilled technical employment in rural communities while addressing waste-management and soil-degradation challenges alongside carbon removal.
Biochar could have particular relevance for Africa’s acidic tropical soils, the company said. In controlled field trials cited by BIG, plots treated with its biochar recorded yield increases of up to 50 percent.
Ikenna Nzewi, chief executive officer of BIG, said Africa’s biomass resources could give the continent an opportunity to develop large-scale carbon removal at comparatively low cost.
“Africa has natural advantages to lead the most scalable and cost effective biomass-based carbon removal globally,” Nzewi said.
He added that partnerships with agricultural processors could turn waste liabilities into a broader climate and economic opportunity.
The latest funding gives BIG additional capital to expand its industrial partnerships and deploy its technology in more food-processing operations.
Tosin Faniro-Dada, partner at BREEGA, said BIG had developed a model capable of converting industrial waste into carbon credits while maintaining an operational focus on the realities of African factories.
According to Faniro-Dada, BIG’s founding team brings almost a decade of experience building and operating industrial infrastructure in Nigeria through Releaf Earth, a Y Combinator-backed agro-processing company.
Oluwatoyin Emmanuel-Olubake, chief investment officer at Catalyst Fund, said the investment was based on BIG’s approach to addressing several challenges facing agribusinesses through a single business model.
She acknowledged execution risks associated with the company’s early stage but said its model was grounded in existing factory and agricultural operations and aligned with growing global demand for durable carbon removal.
BIG was founded by Nzewi, Uzoma Ayogu, chief technology officer, and Isaiah Udotong, chief operating officer.
The founders previously worked together at Releaf Earth, where they developed industrial agricultural-processing solutions, including patented nut-cracking machinery, and built supply networks involving thousands of smallholder farmers.
BIG said the team has operated four industrial factories, developed food-processing equipment and managed smallholder supply chains, experience it intends to apply to the carbon-removal industry.
The company is now positioning its Biochar-as-a-Service model as a way to build a commercially viable carbon-removal industry around Africa’s existing agricultural and industrial infrastructure, while creating additional value from materials that food processors have traditionally treated as waste.
