Alt Carbon secures $12M Seed Round to scale Carbon Removal in India using Rock Weathering
Summary
Alt Carbon, a Darjeeling-born climate tech company, has secured a $12 million seed round led by Lachy Groom, co-founder of Physical Intelligence.The funding will help the startup expand its enhanced rock weathering operations across India. Founded by siblings Shrey and Sparsh Agarwal, Alt Carbon transforms waste basalt into a carbon removal solution that supports local farming communities while locking away CO for millennia.The idea for Alt Carbon emerged in 2020 when the Agarwal brothers returned to their familys failing tea estate. Instead of selling, they began experimenting with carbon credits and discovered the potential of enhanced rock weathering. By late 2023, Alt Carbon officially launched, piloting their technology across 500 acres of tea farmland.Today, theyre scaling across North Bengal to include rice and bamboo farms, with a target of reaching 500,000 hectares and removing 5 million tons of CO by 2030.The science behind the solutionAlt Carbon spreads waste basalt rock dustsourced from Indias Rajmahal Trapson farmland. Their multi-layered monitoring approach includes soil, groundwater, and river analysis, supported by reactive transport models and machine learning to ensure accurate carbon removal measurements.The startup operates labs in Darjeeling and Bengaluru, employs 25 people including 810 PhDs, and is planning a hardware studio for real-time soil monitoring.Alt Carbon previously secured a $500K pre-purchase from Frontier and is backed by Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and McKinsey through a $1B advanced market commitment.