India’s Varaha is giving $20 million to scale up carbon removal in the Global South.

India-based climate technology startup Varaha has raised $20 million in new funding to expand its carbon removal projects in the Global South and position itself as a low-cost provider of proven emissions reductions.

The investment is the first part of a planned $45 million Series B round led by WestBridge Capital, the venture firm’s first investment in climate technology, with participation from existing investors including RTP Global and Omnivore. Founded in 2022, Varaha builds carbon removal projects across Asia and Africa, raising approximately $33 million in equity capital to date, along with $35 million in project financing and $500,000 in grants.

India has emerged as an increasingly important base for carbon removal projects, offering lower operating costs, deep agricultural supply chains and a large technical talent pool as corporate demand for proven removals grows, including those with increasing energy use in data centers and AI workloads. Varaha is seeking to capitalize on this advantage, claiming that its execution-led model allows it to deliver carbon removal at a lower cost while meeting the same international validation standards as its higher-cost competitors in Europe and North America.

Varaha’s strength lies less in its proprietary technology and more in its execution, co-founder and CEO Madhur Jain said in an interview. He argued that high operating costs could be a constraint for carbon removal developers in wealthy markets as prices come under pressure.

“If carbon credits are a cost to the companies that buy these carbon credits… then it’s just a cost on the balance sheet. It’s not a CSR item,” Jain told TechCrunch. “So if the costs in a particular region are too high, say 1.5 to 3 times the credit production, it will be extremely difficult for that company to survive.”

Varaha works primarily with smallholder farmers and industrial partners in emerging markets to develop carbon removal projects across four key pathways: regenerative agriculture, agroforestry, biochar, and enhanced rock weathering. The startup generates and sells verified carbon removal credits through international registries including Puro.earth, Isometric, Verra, Gold Standard and Swiss-based Carbon Standards International, positioning itself as a supplier to global companies seeking durable, independently verified emissions reductions.

To date, Varaha has removed more than 2 million tons of carbon dioxide across 14 active projects, generating approximately 150,000 carbon removal credits, Jain said. He added that the startup is the first in India to issue carbon credits through a biochar project and the first in Asia to issue credits from enhanced rock weathering through an international registration.

Varaha reported revenue of 430 million rupees (about $4.76 million) from credit offerings last fiscal year and expects to increase revenue to about 1 billion rupees (about $11.06 million) this year while also maintaining after-tax profits.

The startup has signed long-term offtake agreements with global buyers such as Google and Microsoft, as well as companies such as Lufthansa, Swiss Re, and Capgemini.

Varaha currently operates across India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Ivory Coast, working with about 170,000 to 175,000 farmers across about 1.7 million acres, Jain said. The latest funding will be used to expand into additional markets in South and Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and Indonesia, while strengthening its presence in existing regions.

The startup is also launching an industrial partner program that will enable industrial operators with access to sustainable biomass and gasification capacity to generate verified biochar-based carbon removal credits using Varaha’s measurement, reporting and verification system. Varaha is already running this program with partners in West Africa and India, including agribusinesses and steel producers, as it seeks to scale up carbon removal through partnerships rather than owning all the assets itself.

“The problem is so big that technologies and such will be open source for a period of time,” Jain said. “So the most important thing is execution.”

Varaha employs approximately 225-230 people, including approximately 55 across technical, scientific, product and data roles, with over 80% of its workforce based in India. The startup does not maintain overseas offices, but has staff in markets such as Nepal, Germany, the US and Australia, reflecting its growing international customer base.

“We believe Varaha is uniquely positioned to build a global carbon removal platform in India with a combination of integrity, scale and impact,” said Sandeep Singhal, co-founder and managing partner of WestBridge Capital. “This investment reflects our confidence in the team and their potential to shape the next phase of global climate infrastructure.”