African climate-tech startup Biochar Industrial Group (BIG) has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding to turn agricultural waste from food-processing factories into biochar and carbon-removal credits.

The company was founded in 2026 by Ikenna Nzewi, Uzoma Ayogu and Isaiah Udotong, executives who spent nearly a decade building agricultural-processing infrastructure at Releaf Earth.

BIG plans to use the new capital to deploy pyrolysis equipment directly at food-processing facilities across Africa. The machines will convert agricultural residues such as nut shells, husks, cobs and other biomass into biochar, a carbon-rich material that can be used for long-term carbon storage and as a soil amendment.

The funding round was led by early-stage venture capital firm BREEGA, with participation from the Catalyst Fund. The Mulago Foundation also provided non-dilutive funding.

Rather than requiring factories to purchase the equipment themselves, BIG plans to finance, install and operate the systems on-site. The factories supply the waste and receive a share of the resulting value.

That model sits at the centre of what BIG calls Biochar-as-a-Service, or BaaS.

Turning an Industrial Waste Problem Into a Carbon Business

Africa produces enormous quantities of agricultural residue every year.

Nut shells, maize cobs, husks, stalks and sawdust are often treated as low-value by-products of food and agricultural processing.

Some residues can be sold or reused, but a significant amount has limited economic value at the point where it is generated.

BIG's proposition is to change that economics.

Instead of allowing biomass waste to decompose or be disposed of, the startup wants to process it through pyrolysis and convert part of the carbon contained in the biomass into a more durable form.

The resulting biochar can then be used in agriculture while the carbon-removal activity can potentially generate credits for sale to companies purchasing carbon removals.

Africa produces more than 3 billion tonnes of agricultural waste annually, according to research cited by the company. That gives BIG an unusually large potential feedstock base. (ScienceDirect)

How BIG's Biochar Process Works

At the heart of the business is a process known as pyrolysis.

In BIG's planned system, agricultural residue is fed into a continuous pyrolysis machine and heated at temperatures above 600°C in an oxygen-deprived environment.

Because oxygen is restricted, the biomass does not simply burn.

Instead, it is transformed into biochar and other outputs.

The resulting biochar retains carbon that was originally absorbed by the plants from the atmosphere.

When the biochar is subsequently stored in a stable form or incorporated into suitable soils, that carbon can remain out of the atmosphere for extended periods.

The exact permanence depends on factors including the properties of the biochar and how it is ultimately used.

That permanence is important because carbon-removal markets distinguish between temporary emissions reductions and activities designed to store atmospheric carbon for much longer periods.

BIG Wants to Finance the Equipment Itself

The company's business model is designed to remove one of the biggest barriers to deploying industrial equipment: upfront capital.

Under BIG's Biochar-as-a-Service model, the agricultural processor does not have to purchase and operate the pyrolysis equipment.

Instead, BIG finances and deploys the machinery at the facility.

It also plans to provide the personnel needed to operate the equipment and manage the associated logistics.

The factory supplies the agricultural waste and receives a share of the value generated.

BIG then handles the conversion process, carbon measurement, verification and eventual credit issuance.

The model essentially turns an existing waste stream into a potential source of additional revenue without requiring the food processor to build an entirely new business around waste management.

The Carbon Credits Are Central to the Economics

BIG intends to generate carbon-removal credits from the biochar produced through its systems.

Those credits can potentially be sold to organisations seeking to purchase durable carbon removal.

But this market comes with an important requirement: buyers need confidence that the claimed carbon removal actually occurred.

That is why monitoring and verification are central to BIG's expansion plans.

The company says it intends to deploy digital Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) systems that continuously track biomass entering its equipment, how it is processed and the resulting carbon-removal activity.

The resulting data trail is intended to support independent auditing of the credits.

For BIG, this means its technology isn't simply a machine that produces biochar.

It also needs to function as a measurement and verification system capable of producing data that carbon markets can trust.

BIG Is Targeting Large Food Processors

The startup is initially targeting agricultural processors generating at least 2,500 tonnes of waste annually.

That threshold allows BIG to focus on facilities with sufficiently large and consistent feedstock streams to support an industrial-scale operation.

The company is particularly interested in residues including nut shells, husks and cobs that have relatively limited value in their current uses.

The strategy is important because the economics of biomass processing depend heavily on feedstock availability.

A pyrolysis facility cannot operate efficiently if it does not have a predictable supply of suitable material.

That explains BIG's approach to expansion.

“Where the Biomass Takes Us”

BIG says it is not restricting itself to a predetermined list of African countries.

Instead, it plans to follow the availability of suitable biomass.

The company says it has already visited potential sites across West Africa and has received enquiries from other regions of the continent.

That creates a fundamentally different expansion strategy from choosing markets based primarily on population size or GDP.

For BIG, the critical question is where there are large concentrations of agricultural-processing waste that can be collected and processed economically.

In the company's words, “BIG goes where the biomass takes us.”

The Soil-Health Opportunity

Carbon removal is only one side of the business.

BIG also sees an agricultural application for the biochar itself.

Biochar can be incorporated into soil as an amendment, where its physical and chemical properties can influence soil structure, water retention and nutrient availability.

That creates an interesting circular-economy model.

Agricultural waste from food processors can be converted into biochar.

The biochar can then potentially return to agricultural land as an input while some of the associated carbon-removal value is monetised through carbon markets.

This could be particularly relevant in regions where soil degradation is limiting agricultural productivity.

The World Bank has previously estimated that more than 80% of Africa's agricultural land is degraded, although the condition and causes of degradation vary substantially across countries and regions. (World Bank)

The Founders Bring Industrial Experience

BIG's founding team is not starting from scratch in African agricultural infrastructure.

Nzewi, Ayogu and Udotong previously worked at Releaf Earth, a Y Combinator-backed agro-processing company focused on building infrastructure around agricultural supply chains in Africa.

That experience is relevant because BIG's model depends on more than developing a climate technology.

The company must install heavy equipment, secure reliable biomass supplies, operate industrial facilities, manage logistics and produce verifiable data.

Those are operational challenges as much as technological ones.

BIG says the new funding will be used to hire engineers, operations and logistics specialists, as well as employees focused on carbon verification.

Investors Are Betting on Execution

BREEGA's investment reflects the potential it sees in combining industrial infrastructure with carbon removal.

BREEGA partner Tosin Faniro-Dada described BIG's approach as an attempt to turn industrial waste into repeatable, auditable carbon credits, while pointing to the founders' previous experience operating agricultural infrastructure.

The investment also highlights an emerging category of African climate technology that goes beyond software.

Rather than building another digital platform, BIG is putting capital into physical equipment, industrial operations and supply chains.

That can make the business harder to build — but potentially gives it access to large physical markets that software alone cannot address.

BIG Is Entering a Growing Biochar Market

BIG is not the only company exploring agricultural residues as a source of carbon removal.

African companies including Biochar Solutions Africa, PathBeing, Biosorra and Tera are also developing biochar-related businesses.

Globally, companies such as Charm Industrial, Graphyte and Vaulted Deep are pursuing different approaches to turning biomass or organic material into longer-term carbon storage.

The technologies and business models differ considerably.

But they share a common premise: waste biomass can potentially become a feedstock for carbon-removal systems rather than simply being treated as waste.

The Hard Part Is Scaling

The opportunity is large, but so are the operational challenges.

BIG will need to prove that its equipment can operate reliably at industrial food-processing sites.

It will need consistent access to suitable biomass, efficient logistics and sufficient carbon-removal yields.

It will also need independent verification of its carbon claims.

That last point is particularly important.

Carbon markets depend on credible measurement. If a carbon-removal credit cannot demonstrate that a specific amount of carbon was actually removed and stored for the claimed duration, its value can be significantly weakened.

BIG's planned MRV infrastructure will therefore be as important to the business as the pyrolysis equipment itself.

Africa Could Have a Structural Advantage

BIG CEO Ikenna Nzewi argues that Africa has natural advantages for biomass-based carbon removal because of the scale of its agricultural economy and the availability of agricultural residues.

The company's strategy is effectively to combine three markets that already exist:

Agriculture produces the biomass.

Industrial processors concentrate the waste.

Carbon markets provide a potential additional source of revenue.

The challenge is connecting those markets economically.

If BIG can build a system where food factories have an incentive to supply waste, BIG can operate the equipment profitably and carbon buyers trust the resulting credits, the model could potentially be replicated across multiple agricultural-processing clusters.

What the $1.5 Million Will Build

BIG says its new funding will support several areas of expansion:

• Deploying pyrolysis equipment at food-processing facilities

• Hiring engineering and operations teams

• Building logistics capacity

• Developing carbon-verification systems

• Implementing digital MRV infrastructure

• Expanding the company's pipeline of industrial sites

The company is still at an early stage.

But its ambition is continental.

Rather than treating agricultural waste as a disposal problem, BIG wants to build an infrastructure network that converts the material into biochar, agricultural inputs and carbon-removal assets.

If that model works at scale, one of Africa's biggest agricultural by-products could become a new source of economic and environmental value.

The question now is whether BIG can make that conversion economically repeatable across the continent.

BIG is betting that Africa's agricultural-waste problem can become a climate-finance opportunity.

What makes the model interesting is the structure: the startup finances the equipment, food processors provide the waste, and BIG manages the conversion and carbon verification.

But carbon removal is a market where measurement is everything. Producing biochar is one challenge; proving exactly how much carbon has been removed, how long it will remain stored and whether buyers can trust those claims is another.

The $1.5 million therefore isn't just funding machinery. It is funding BIG's attempt to build the industrial, logistical and verification infrastructure needed to turn African biomass into a credible carbon-removal business.