In 2020, we returned to our family’s heritage tea estate in Darjeeling with the intention of selling it.
Our family had been custodians of Darjeeling’s estates for three generations. However, facing bankruptcy and collapse, due to climate change and the pandemic, our family was simply unable to hold on to it. But, @SparshAgarwall and I were inspired by the forests, the people, and the promise of Darjeeling. Our journey led us back to our roots.
We spent the next few years trying to reimagine the space of the tea estate. We started with moving to Selim Hill Tea Estate in Darjeeling, & eventually carbon markets emerged as the most promising path for creating supplementary incomes for these large, heritage tea estates, and its local communities. After months of deep research; across labs, farms, and policies — we formally launched
@AltCarbonIndia in Q4 2023.
Alt Carbon is a deep-tech, science and data company for undertaking climate action. We bring together farmers, scientists, and engineers to remove CO₂.
With Speed. At Scale.
We are glad to announce our latest $12 million seed round - led by
@lachygroom, with participation from existing funds like Shastra VC and angel investors including
@jasonzhao, Amrendra Singh,
@thetanmay ,
@arjunssoin,
@NakuulMehta,
@arjun_ramani3,
@AdvaithV,
@ultasawaal and more…
Shoutout to Alankrita, Sruthi and the
@actgrants team for enabling us with catalytic philanthropic capital.
Here’s what’s next:
1. We will build the agricultural infrastructure for Climate Action — to bring down costs & enable Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) across South Asia. Our mission: Remove 5 million tons of CO₂ by 2030.
2. Scientifically prove the scalability of ERW through the Darjeeling Revival Project. Scale our learning. Design more projects. Chart a path to gigaton removal by 2040.
3. Improve our science, conduct advanced R&D, collect high quality data, create Machine Learning models that accelerate our operations across the board.
4. Build credibility and demand for ERW from the Global South, for the world.
5. Sipping on the world’s greatest tea while doing this. (DM me about Chandni xD)
We started Alt Carbon because of a romantic love affair with Darjeeling.
To those who saw what we saw — thank you for fueling this journey and believing in us early:
@awaisahmedna,
@EvanMula,
@acv ,
@vsiv,
@SinglaAnirudh @somani_utsav, Ravish Ratnam, Sangarsh Nigam, Mukesh Chamedia, Ashish Nayak, Jivesh Madan, Rahul Sunder,
@Mandybuoy,
@vidyamadhavan2, Abhimanyu, Ajeet, Tsuji-san, Sawamura-san, Yamazumi-san, Kawaguchi-san, Murao-san, Hirose-san and so many more...
We’re hiring across all teams. Come build the future of climate action with us.