Farm Watt Innovations Raises ₹32.5 crore Funding led by IAN Alpha Fund

Founding Team – Farm Watt Innovations

IAN Alpha Fund, the second in the series of IAN Group’s VC funds, has co-led the ₹32.5 Crore funding round of Farm Watt Innovations, along with Rainmatter. The fresh capital will be utilized to strengthen the supply chain for India's rapidly expanding bioenergy sector, increase the number of biomass collection networks, construct additional aggregation hubs, invest in machinery, and develop its workforce.

Founded in 2023 by Kumar Neelendu, Kumar Neelendu brings over 23 years of diverse leadership experience, with the majority of his career dedicated to rural development, spanning financial inclusion, agriculture, and sustainable livelihood initiatives.

Since 2015, he has been actively involved in the renewable energy and bioenergy sector, working closely with European technology partners to secure the marketing rights for several advanced and future-ready technologies in the Compressed Biogas (CBG) industry. He has played a key role in introducing and commercializing these technologies across India and international markets.

Recognizing a critical gap in the emerging bioenergy ecosystem, Neelendu founded Farmwatt Innovations. He observed that while millions of tonnes of agricultural residue were being openly burned every year, the SATAT initiative had simultaneously triggered rapid investment in CBG and other green energy projects. However, there was no organized platform to connect biomass availability with the growing industry demand.

Going forward, Farmwatt aims to expand beyond aggregation and technology integration by developing its own portfolio of CBG, bio-pellet, and biochar plants, creating a fully integrated circular bioeconomy platform that delivers environmental, social, and economic impact.Approximately 92 million tonnes of crop residue are burned annually in India, contributing considerably to soil degradation and air pollution while releasing an estimated 34 million tonnes of CO2 into the sky. In addition, India produces around 500 million tons of agricultural residue a year, much of it is underutilized even though it has the potential to be used as feedstock for renewable energy.

The Government of India's SATAT (Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation) policy, which is propelling the swift growth of compressed biogas (CBG) facilities throughout the nation, has given this option even more impetus. However, the absence of a dependable, well-organized biomass supply chain that can produce high-quality feedstock on a large scale continues to be one of the industry's key problems.

The investment underlines IAN Alpha Fund's conviction that India's clean energy transition would depend on a robust biomass supply chain. They have created a unique strategy that helps both farmers and bioenergy companies by fusing an organized aggregation network with a thorough understanding of rural markets. The company is well-positioned to grow as the need for biomass continues to rise, thanks to its seasoned founding team, expanding network of farmers, and solid industry alliances.

Kumar Neelendu, Founder & Managing Director, Farm Watt Innovations, said, “This investment marks an important milestone in Farm Watt's journey towards building a scalable circular bioeconomy. As on the one hand, we had industries coming up in the biogas sector, like Reliance, IOCL, HPCL, BPCL. And, on the other, we had a situation where farmers were burning agri-waste. We thought it was the best time to get into the business.”

Sarika Saxena, Managing Partner at IAN Alpha Fund, said, “India’s transition to clean energy hinges on solving a massive, dual-sided challenge: managing millions of tonnes of underutilized crop residue while meeting the bioenergy sector’s soaring demand for reliable biomass. This isn’t just an environmental hurdle—it’s a massive supply-chain opportunity.

Farm Watt is capturing this market by building the missing link between farmers and the renewable energy ecosystem. Through their dependable biomass aggregation network, they are simultaneously curbing stubble burning, boosting rural incomes, and accelerating India’s circular bioeconomy. We are proud to back a team whose deep rural market expertise and sharp execution capabilities position them to become a definitive leader in the space.”

Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Bihar are among the states that the company intends to grow. Additionally, it intends to grow into digital biomass supply chain solutions, carbon credits, biochar, biomass preprocessing, and Bio-CBG initiatives.

The demand for a dependable biomass supply chain is anticipated to increase quickly as India keeps investing in compressed biogas and renewable energy. By lowering stubble burning, raising farmer earnings, and assisting the nation's move to cleaner energy, Farm Watt hopes to play a significant part in this change.

About Farm Watt Innovations:

Farm Watt Innovations Pvt Ltd is a climate-focused agribusiness and bioenergy enabler, working at trisection of agri waste management, rural livelihoods and renewable energy supply chain. Our core activity revolves around transforming agri residues into economic value while addressing critical environmental challenges like stubble burning causing air pollution and greenhouse gas emission. Our primary business activity involves aggregation, processing, and supply of agricultural biomass to downstream bioenergy applications such as Compressed Biogas (CBG) plants, bioenergy facilities, and circular bioeconomy enterprises.

A key pillar of our work is decentralized agri-residue aggregation hubs at clusters located at block level. Hubs facilitates collection, baling, storage, quality control and logistics of agri residues following standardized operational protocols, safety systems, and transparent weighing and payment mechanisms to ensure efficiency and fairness. We are currently operating from 15 Hubs spread across 6 states of northern, central and eastern India.

About IAN Alpha Fund:

IAN Alpha Fund, a $100 Mn SEBI-registered Category II AIF VC Fund, is the 2nd fund in IAN Group’s series of funds. The Fund explores opportunities in diverse sectors such as healthtech, cleantech, deep tech, agritech, medtech, hardware and electronics, manufacturing, Web 3.0, Metaverse, Industry 4.0, SaaS, and other sectors where innovation is transformational. The Fund invests in innovative startups solving real problems for India and the world, with sustainable business models enabling scale by leveraging technology. With the IAN Alpha Fund, IAN Group continues its two-decade legacy of building a portfolio of technology-focused, innovative companies led by founders who not only understand customer needs but also have the leadership qualities to build large and valuable businesses.