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 expand its Biochar-as-a-Service model.
The funding will support the company’s partnerships with food-processing factories to convert agricultural waste into biochar and carbon removal credits, while creating additional revenue streams for African agribusinesses.
BREEGA led the funding round, with participation from the Catalyst Fund, while Mulago Foundation provided non-dilutive funding.
BIG operates across three interconnected challenges facing Africa: carbon emissions, industrial waste and soil degradation.
The company estimates that Africa generates about one billion tonnes of non-edible agricultural biomass annually, including nut shells, cobs, husks and stalks. Much of the waste decomposes and releases carbon dioxide previously absorbed by plants.
At the same time, prolonged cultivation and the use of synthetic fertilisers are contributing to soil degradation, with BIG estimating that between 30 and 60 kilogrammes of nutrients are lost from every hectare of cultivated land annually.
The company said the situation could worsen significantly by 2050, when half of Africa’s arable land could become unusable, potentially affecting more than 485 million people.
BIG converts agricultural waste into biochar through continuous pyrolysis, a process that heats organic material at temperatures above 600°C in an oxygen-deprived environment.
According to the company, the process locks carbon away for hundreds to thousands of years and produces independently auditable carbon removal credits, while the resulting biochar can be used as a soil amendment to improve degraded farmland.
BIG said it installs pyrolysis units directly at food-processing facilities, adapting the technology to local feedstocks and operating conditions while employing local technical staff.
The model is designed to convert waste disposal costs into a shared revenue opportunity for processors, create skilled jobs in rural communities and return biochar to farms through existing agricultural supply chains.
The company said biochar is particularly effective in Africa’s acidic tropical soils, with controlled field trials recording yield increases of up to 50% on plots treated with BIG’s biochar.
Ikenna Nzewi, CEO of BIG, said Africa has the natural resources needed to develop large-scale and cost-effective biomass-based carbon removal.
“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 transform local waste liabilities into a broader climate solution.
Tosin Faniro-Dada, Partner at BREEGA, said BIG was addressing an industrial waste challenge while developing repeatable and auditable carbon credits.
Oluwatoyin Emmanuel-Olubake, Chief Investment Officer at Catalyst Fund, said the investment was based on BIG’s model of addressing multiple agribusiness challenges through a single system.
BIG was founded by Nzewi, Uzoma Ayogu, CTO, and Isaiah Udotong, COO. The founders previously spent almost a decade building industrial agricultural infrastructure through Releaf Earth, a Y Combinator-backed agro-processing company.
The team has operated four industrial factories, developed patented nut-cracking machinery and managed supply chains involving thousands of smallholder farmers.
BIG said the experience has provided its founders with technical expertise and regional relationships that it is now applying to the carbon removal industry across Africa.
