Chakr Innovation, an emission-control device manufacturing company, has raised an undisclosed sum in a Series B round from Neev Fund II, a fund managed by SBICap Ventures, the company said in a statement.
Previously, Chakr raised a Rs 19 crore round led by Indian Angel Network, along with Jyoti Sagar and the IDFC Parampara fund in 2019.
Operated by Chakr Innovation Pvt Ltd, the cleantech startup was formed by two IIT Delhi engineers - Kushagra Srivastava and Bharti Singhla. Chakr converts soot collected from vehicular exhaust into printable ink using a proprietary liquid. It is also working on multiple technologies like metal-air battery technology, the statement said.
“Climate action and environmental sustainability are the need of the hour to save India’s cities, and clean air action has been our mission since we founded Chakr in 2016. This equity infusion will help accelerate the commercialisation of our innovative technologies for climate action, and also help us expand our world-class customer base,” Srivastava and Singhla said in the statement.
India’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) have identified diesel generator sets as the major source of emission of particulate matter.
Recently, eight states in India have been notified that all operational diesal generation sets of capacity 125 KVA and above have to be retrofitted with emission-control devices or shift to gas-based generators. The notifications stipulate that the retrofit emission control device should have a minimum specified particulate matter-capturing efficiency of 70 per cent, the statement said.
Chakr’s claims to help industries reduce emissions, stay compliant as well as drive a positive environmental change. The Neev Fund II was announced during the EU-India Leaders Meeting, and has secured the backing of the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the UK government, and State Bank of India (SBI).
It aims to provide growth and expansion capital to SME companies working for the efficient use of raw materials, water, clean energy, sustainable mobility, and a circular economy in the country.
In July, rooftop solar solutions company MYSUN raised Rs 15 crore ($2 million) in debt funding from TATA Cleantech Capital Ltd (TCCL), a joint venture between Tata Capital Ltd and World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.
TCCL is the first private-sector company globally to partner with Green Climate Fund (GCF) to develop the solar rooftop market through a $100 million credit line, and this term loan and credit line raised by MYSUN forms a part of this GCF facility. Earlier this year, VA Tech Wabag Ltd, a water-technology company, raised debt and equity funding from International Finance Corporation (IFC), Tata Cleantech Capital and EverSource Capital.
