Bio-Logical raises $1m to build Africa’s largest biochar production facility in Kenya

Bio-Logical, a climate tech company has $1m (Sh152M) seed round to build Africa’s largest biochar production facility in Kenya as part of its move to expand its operations in the East African nation.

Utilising its innovative technology, Bio-Logical will use this funding to build the largest biochar production facility in Africa.

It will transform over 30,000 tonnes of agricultural waste a year into biochar, sequestering 25,000 tonnes of CO2.

Bio-Logical will transform waste into biochar, a supermaterial that sequesters carbon for millennia and regenerates degraded soil.

Their biochar is then incorporated into an organic fertiliser which is distributed to smallholder farmers in the region, regenerating land, increasing crop drought resistance, and boosting yields by over 50 per cent.

This process will generate carbon credits, the revenue from which will be used to subsidise its resilience-building fertiliser for smallholder farmers, boosting yields and reducing fertiliser costs.

Smallholder farmers are facing a dire outlook with faltering harvests, increasingly extreme weather, and skyrocketing fertiliser prices becoming increasingly common due to climate change.

“Bio-Logical was founded on the belief that smallholder farmers should not suffer at the hands of a climate crisis they have played no part in. At present, soil degradation and changing weather patterns due to climate change are directly threatening the livelihoods of 500 million smallholder farmers around the world,” said Rory Buckworth, Bio-Logical Co-Founder.

According to fellow founder Philip Hunter carbon credits should do more than simply remove carbon from the atmosphere and instead should be used to build the resilience of climate-vulnerable communities.

The funding round is led by the Steyn Group alongside Angel Investors Rob Konterman, Luke Calcott-Stevens, and Jochem Wieringa.

The round will go towards the development of Bio-Logical’s first Kenya site which will pave the way for its expansion throughout the region that will see the company scale to support 1 million smallholders and sequester 1 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2030.