17 September 2026
Biochar Industrial Group (BIG), a climate technology company engineering 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 funding will accelerate partnerships with food processing factories to turn agricultural waste into durable carbon removal solutions, creating additional revenue for African food factories.
The round was led by BREEGA, with participation from The Catalyst Fund. The Mulago Foundation also provided non-dilutive funding.
Turning industrial waste into durable carbon removal
BIG operates at the intersection of three critical challenges: carbon emissions, industrial waste, and accelerated soil degradation.
Africa produces 1 billion tons of non-edible agricultural biomass annually, a figure expected to multiply as the continent’s population triples to 4 billion people over the coming decades. Waste such as nut shells, cobs, husks, and stalks decomposes and releases the CO₂ stored by photosynthesis.
At the same time, Africa’s cultivated land is being degraded by overuse and synthetic fertilizers, stripping 30–60 kilograms of nutrients from every hectare each year. By 2050, half of Africa’s arable land could be unusable, impacting more than 485 million people.
Biochar-as-a-Service for food processors
BIG partners directly with food processors to convert low- or negative-value waste into biochar via continuous pyrolysis: heating organic matter in a high-temperature environment above 600°C without oxygen.
The process permanently traps carbon for hundreds to thousands of years, generating independently auditable, high-integrity carbon removal credits while producing a vital soil amendment that restores depleted farmland.
By co-locating pyrolysis units modified for local feedstock and operating conditions directly inside food factories, and staffing them locally, BIG turns disposal costs into shared profit. The model also creates skilled technical jobs in rural communities and routes soil-restoring biochar back through existing agribusiness supply chains.
Biochar is particularly potent when applied to Africa’s acidic, tropical soils. In controlled field trials, plots treated with BIG’s biochar led to yield increases of up to 50%.
What the team is building
“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.”
— Ikenna Nzewi, CEO, Biochar Industrial Group
“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.”
— Tosin Faniro-Dada, Partner at BREEGA
“We invested in BIG because it developed an innovative approach to solve multiple problems for agribusinesses critical to African and global economic growth with a single, self-reinforcing model. The company is early, and execution risk is real but the logic is compelling — grounded in how factories and farms actually operate, sharpened by a global rush toward durable carbon removal, and carried by a team that has already assembled the relationships and the technology the model depends on. That is why we are backing BIG, and why we believe the opportunity ahead of them is substantial.”
— Oluwatoyin Emmanuel-Olubake, Chief Investment Officer at The Catalyst Fund
Built from industrial experience in Africa
BIG was founded by Ikenna Nzewi (CEO), Uzoma Ayogu (CTO), and Isaiah Udotong (COO). Together, they have built industrial-scale agriculture solutions for almost a decade with Releaf Earth, a Y Combinator-backed agro-processing company that designed patented nut-cracking machinery and sourced feedstock from thousands of smallholder farmers.
Having operated four industrial factories, invented food processing equipment, and managed smallholder supply chains, the founders bring technical fluency and regional relationships to the carbon removal sector.
About Biochar Industrial Group
Biochar Industrial Group is a climate tech startup that provides biochar as a service to agricultural processing facilities. BIG converts waste such as nut shells and husks into soil-improving biochar and earns carbon removal credits.
Learn more at industrialbiochar.com.
About BREEGA
BREEGA backs founders building the future across Digital, Climate, and Deep Tech in Europe and Africa, from pre-Seed to Series A+. Since 2015, BREEGA has grown to €700M in assets under management, with offices in London and Paris, a portfolio of more than 110 startups, and hands-on support through its Scaling Squad.
Learn more at breega.com.
Talk to BIG about turning your factory’s waste into a revenue stream.