Bengaluru-based specialty chemical compounds startup altM has raised $10.3 million in a Collection A spherical led by Zerodha’s Rainmatter by Zerodha and Mela Ventures.

Current traders Omnivore, Theia Ventures, Aureolis Ventures and Spectrum Influence additionally participated, together with strategic angel traders.

The startup turns agricultural residue resembling sugarcane bagasse and rice straw into chemical compounds and supplies that substitute fossil-derived inputs.

It’ll use the recent funding for manufacturing capability, analysis and improvement, buyer qualification programmes, and its engineering and business groups, because it strikes from pilot-scale manufacturing to business manufacturing.

The spherical comes simply over three years after altM raised a $3.5 million seed spherical in 2023, taking its all-time increase to round $13.8 million.

What altM makes

altM was based in 2022 by Apoorv Garg and Yugal Raj Jain, who labored collectively in manufacturing at Tesla within the US. Bioprocessing scientist Harshad Velankar later joined as Chief Scientific Officer.

The startup works with lignocellulosic biomass, the woody, non-food a part of crops. Its course of first breaks the residue down into its important fractions, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, after which upgrades every fraction into separate chemical compounds. Utilizing all of the fractions lets it make a number of merchandise from a single feedstock.

Its merchandise are geared toward magnificence and private care, textiles, industrial chemical compounds, development, packaging and shopper items. The primary ones shifting in direction of business sale are a lignin-derived SPF booster for suncare, a cellulose-based rheology modifier, and bio-derived ferulic acid for cosmetics and private care formulations. Its analysis pipeline additionally covers development, electronics, automotive, polymers and battery supplies.

For the reason that seed spherical, altM has constructed an built-in R&D and pilot manufacturing facility in Bengaluru, expanded its laboratory house almost fivefold in lower than two years, and commissioned an indication manufacturing unit. Six molecules have reached demonstration scale, and three have been picked for pilot plant manufacturing.

Garg claims it has filed six patents in India overlaying its deconstruction know-how and the processes for upgrading particular person molecules, and is engaged on a seventh.

“Industrial manufacturing has relied on fossil carbon for greater than a century. We’re constructing a brand new supply of commercial carbon from agricultural residue,” Garg mentioned.

“Transferring a cloth from the laboratory to business manufacturing requires greater than proving that it really works. It requires processes that may persistently produce the identical materials at rising scale,” mentioned Yugal Raj Jain, co-founder and COO.

“India possesses an immense home agricultural residue base, and by remodeling this surplus into high-performance biochemicals, Apoorv and Yugal are unlocking strategic industrial worth,” mentioned Abhinav Negi, Lead, Local weather and Deep Tech at Rainmatter by Zerodha.

Krishnakumar N, Managing Accomplice at Mela Ventures, mentioned: “At Mela, we like to speculate on the inflection level, and with altM we expect second is right here for creating new age supplies that are extra environmentally pleasant.”

“Going from the lab to dependable manufacturing and, finally, clients is a tough journey. altM has proven a uncommon capacity to make that transition,” mentioned Abhilash Sethi, Accomplice at Omnivore.

altM’s mannequin depends upon a gradual provide of crop waste, a lot of which is burnt in fields in India. A Ministry of New and Renewable Vitality examine used for the National Biomass Atlas of India estimated surplus biomass from agricultural residues at about 230 million tonnes a 12 months in 2017-18.

Outdoors India, altM has mentioned it expects Europe to be its first worldwide market, pushed by laws on sustainable content material and emissions discount.