Carbon Masters Raises Fresh Capital to Expand Biomethane and Organic Fertiliser Operations Across India

Carbon Masters India Pvt Ltd (CMIPL), a climate-tech venture pioneering circular economy solutions, has raised an undisclosed amount in a fresh round of equity funding led by Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia (SEEAA), Sangam Ventures, and IAN Group. The round also saw participation from Sriram Sankaran, Managing Director of Synchron Group, and Muthu Murugappan, CEO of Murugappa Group.

As part of this investment, Vikram Raman from SEEAA and Sriram Sankaran have joined Carbon Masters’ Board of Directors.

Carbon Masters, co-founded by Som Narayan and Kevin Houston, is committed to converting organic waste streams otherwise bound for landfill into renewable biomethane and bio-enriched organic manure, marketed under its flagship Carbonlites brand.

The company executes CBG (Compressed Biogas) and Organic manure projects through Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and joint ventures (JVs) with strong waste management partners. Its flagship JV, Sustainable Impacts with Hasiru Dala Innovations, operates one of the few authorized wet waste processing facilities in Bangalore designated to handle the city’s bulk generators’ organic waste. The project has also secured pipeline injection clearance from GAIL, with pipeline laying now completed. This positions the plant uniquely to process waste at scale, and injecting biomethane into India’s gas grid to decarbonise households. It will also supply Carbonlites gas to hotels, restaurants, and industries as a substitute for LPG and CNG

Through this replicable SPV model, Carbon Masters is building a robust business framework to partner with municipalities and private operators across India to help it in its transition to net zero. 

With this fresh equity infusion, Carbon Masters will:

• Expand production capacity of Carbonlites Biomethane (CBG),
• Scale its Carbonlites bio-enriched organic fertiliser portfolio,
• Enhance efficiency across existing operations.
• Team building across sales marketing and R&D .

The company is now preparing for its next equity round to finance five upcoming SPVs, with Ostara Advisors, India’s first climate-tech-focused Transaction Advisory firm, appointed as investment bankers.

CMIPL currently operates five CBG plants across Karnataka, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu, collectively processing over 36,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste annually through anaerobic digestion. Its 80+ member team supplies Carbonlites CBG to commercial kitchens, industries, transport fleets, and city gas networks, while Carbonlites Bio-Enriched Organic Manure supports regenerative agriculture by improving soil health and farm productivity.

“We are proud to support Carbon Masters in its mission to decarbonize critical sectors of the Indian economy. Investing in scalable clean energy infrastructure and sustainable agriculture solutions is vital to building a resilient and inclusive low-carbon future.”, Gilles Vermot Desroches, SVP, Corporate Citizenship, Schneider Electric & President, SEEAA. 

“Carbon Masters’ innovative circular economy business model aligns with our vision of financing deep decarbonization pathways. The company’s potential to displace fossil fuels while improving soil health makes it a compelling climate-tech investment.” Karthik Chandrasekar, CEO, Sangam Ventures

“IAN has topped up its investment in Carbon Masters. This is a strong endorsement of the team’s execution and their ability to keep evolving. Carbon Masters reflects IAN’s thesis of solving real problems through innovation.”, Padmaja Ruparel, Co-founder, IAN Group. 

“We are grateful for the continued trust of our investors, which reflects confidence in our business and growth plans. This investment will help us further strengthen operations and scale sustainably, as we continue to support India’s transition to a low-carbon future and help our customers meet their net zero goals.” Som Narayan, CEO & Co-founder, Carbon Masters

About Carbon Masters

Carbon Masters India Pvt Ltd (CMIPL) is a climate-tech company focused on building a circular economy. Through its Carbonlites brand, the company converts wet municipal waste into Compressed Bio-Methane Gas (CBG) to replace fossil fuels, and Bio-Enriched Organic Manure to improve soil health. Its core value proposition lies in reducing carbon emissions while lowering operational costs for customers.

Website: https://www.carbonlites.com/

About the Investors

Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia (SEEAA)
Founded in 2019, SEEAA is an impact investment fund initiated and managed by Schneider Electric in collaboration with Norfund, EDFI, and Amundi. Its mission is to support 350 million people in Asia who lack access to clean energy.

Sangam Ventures
Sangam Ventures is an early-stage venture fund investing in climate-tech companies that drive decarbonization, resilience, and sustainable development in India.

IAN Group
India’s largest platform for seed and early-stage investments, IAN combines capital, mentoring, and global market access to support entrepreneurs. Its network spans 19 sectors across India and 7 other countries.

Renewable Energy Startup Carbon Masters Raises Funding from IAN and Sangam Ventures

Carbon Masters, a Bangalore based energy startup has raised an undisclosed amount from India’s first and World’s largest angel investor network; Indian Angel Network and Sangam Ventures a pure play clean tech venture fund. The round was led by IAN investors Nagaraja Prakasam, Mridula Ramesh and Karthik Chandrasekar from Sangam Ventures. Nagaraja Prakasam and Karthik Chandrasekar will join Carbon Masters as Board Members to strengthen the leadership team.

Established in 2012, Carbon Masters has pioneered the development of India’s first bottled bio- CNG brand Carbonlites. Launched in 2014, Carbonlites is bio-CNG produced from the biomethanisation of organic waste streams, diverts waste from landfills mitigating methane emissions, displaces LPG for commercial cooking, and other fossil fuels for transport and backup power generation.

Commenting on the announcement, Som Narayan Co-Founder, Carbon Masters said, “We are extremely thankful to Indian Angel Network and Sangam Ventures whose faith in our vision will take us a step closer to achieving our goals. Carbonlites can provide India with a lower cost, carbon neutral alternative to the use of fossil fuels. That it can also provide a more sustainable way of managing organic waste streams in Indian cities makes it a unique carbon mitigation solution. It will be invaluable in helping India achieve its climate change goals under the Paris Accord.”

The company is planning to utilize the funds in product developments, senior, marketing and engineering level hiring and project developments.

Nagaraja Prakasam, IAN investor and lead commented, “Carbon Masters is the first in the country to produce a branded bottled bio-CNG product unleashing the potential of bio-gas. Our portfolio company Saahas (Zero Waste) which manages 30 tons/day of Bangalore waste is to supply wet waste to Carbon Masters that will get converted to bio-CNG. This will power Saahas vehicles and another portfolio company Freshworld’s (Farm on eWheels) vehicles.  Carbonlites enables conversion of Bangalore waste to renewable energy that can be used both for commercial cooking displacing LPG and to power vehicles. The by-product of the process also produces, organic fertilizer which will be sold to Freshworld farmers forming a CIRCULAR ECONOMY. Thus, through our association with the company, we aim to help the company unlock the vast market potential for its products, possibly on a global scale.” As an active angel investor of IAN Impact, Naga has lead Uniphore, GoCoOp, Freshworld, Saahas, SP Robotic, Neurosynaptic, Nativespecial and serves in their boards”

The company has also entered into a partnership agreement with the Mahindra & Mahindra organisation whereby they are investing in building large scale waste to energy plants. The first such plant will be operational from July in Malur, Karnataka.

Karthik Chandrasekar, Founder & CEO, Sangam Capital Advisors said, “India has barely used its biogas energy potential and the sector has suffered from poor corporate and investor interest while European markets have saturated their potential. The Carbon Masters' team is focused on developing marketing and distribution linkages under the CarbonLites brand between producers of biogas (and organic-fertilizer) - farmers, municipalities and agro-industries (lot of whom flare the gas) and consumers for gas and fertilizer in both rural and urban markets. We believe they have found the key to institutionalization of the biogas sector in India!"

Talking about the segment, Narayan further added, “The market for LPG in the commercial and Industrial sector is large and growing. India is the 4th largest market for LPG in the world. For instance, in Bangalore, there are 6000 restaurants and Hotels consuming on average 25kgs of LPG per day (54,750tons per annum). Our first plant in Malur will be producing around 1.5 tons per day ( 547 tons per annum )  giving us ample room to grow.”

Carbon Masters has recently won two Government of India tenders for their Carbonlites in a box product. Both tenders will involve waste to power as opposed to waste to gas for cooking.