Editor’s note: African-Startups is a sister publication of EU-Startups, bringing trusted coverage of startups, venture capital, and innovation across Africa.
Biochar Industrial Group (BIG), a climate technology company building industrial-scale carbon removal solutions for Sub-Saharan Africa, has secured $1.5 million in pre-seed funding to scale its Biochar-as-a-Service model.
The round was led by BREEGA, with participation from The Catalyst Fund. The Mulago Foundation also provided non-dilutive funding.
“Africa has natural advantages to lead the most scalable and cost-effective biomass-based carbon removal globally. 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,” said Ikenna Nzewi, chief executive officer of Biochar Industrial Group.
Biochar Industrial Group is a climate tech startup that provides biochar as a service to agricultural processing facilities, converting waste such as nut shells and husks into soil-improving biochar while earning carbon removal credits.
The company was started by Ikenna Nzewi, Uzoma Ayogu, and Isaiah Udotong. They spent nearly ten years developing large-scale agricultural solutions at Releaf Earth, a company supported by Y Combinator.
At Releaf, they created special nut-cracking machines and worked with many small farmers for their supplies. With experience running factories, inventing food processing tools, and managing supply chains, the founders have valuable skills and connections for the carbon removal industry.
BIG works at the meeting point of three problems: carbon emissions, industrial waste, and fast soil degradation. Africa produces 1 billion tons of non-edible agricultural biomass each year, a figure set to grow as the continent’s population triples to four billion people over the coming decades.
Waste such as nut shells, cobs, husks, and stalks breaks down and releases the CO₂ that was stored through photosynthesis. At the same time, Africa’s farmland is losing 30–60 kilograms of nutrients per hectare each year from overuse and synthetic fertilisers. By 2050, half of Africa’s arable land could become unusable, affecting more than 485 million people.
BIG partners with food processors to turn low-value waste into biochar using a process called continuous pyrolysis, which heats organic matter without oxygen at over 600°C.
This process traps carbon for hundreds to thousands of years, creating reliable carbon removal credits and a beneficial soil amendment that helps restore depleted farmland.
BIG sets up pyrolysis units inside food factories, customized for local materials and conditions, and employs local workers. This approach transforms waste disposal costs into profits, creates skilled jobs in rural areas, and integrates biochar back into existing agribusiness supply chains. In test fields, areas treated with BIG’s biochar experienced yield increases of up to 50%.
The funding will accelerate BIG’s partnerships with food processing factories, turning agricultural waste into durable carbon removal while creating additional revenue for African food factories.
“BIG is turning a real industrial waste problem into repeatable, audit-grade carbon credits, and doing it with a level of operational discipline that’s rare this early. It’s the product of a founding team — Ikenna, Uzoma, and Isaiah — who spent nearly a decade building and operating industrial infrastructure across Nigeria with Releaf Earth. We’re proud to back them as they scale that same execution discipline into carbon removal at a continental scale,” says, Tosin Faniro-Dada, Partner at BREEGA
