WasteX, a company operating at the intersection of agri- and climate-tech by offering waste-to-biochar production equipment and enabling services to agricultural producers and farms across Southeast Asia, announced today a new investment from Norinchukin Innovation Fund L.P., a Corporate Venture Capital arm of The Norinchukin Bank, one of the largest agricultural banks in the world. Global Brain Corporation manages the Norinchukin Innovation Fund L.P. as its General Partner.

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Since its launch in August 2022, WasteX has seen strong interest in its solution across countries and crops. The company has launched pilots with producers, farms, and agri-tech platforms in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand across poultry, cassava, and cocoa with upcoming implementations in corn and coconut, among others. WasteX’s solution - which employs the company’s proprietary equipment - helps its clients upgrade residual biomass from their operations into biochar which is subsequently applied on the farm.

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As a result of the solution implementation, the producers and farms can unlock 3-5x more value from biomass in the form of tangible benefits from agricultural improvements, carbon credits generation, and heat production. Given the affordable price of the solution and its superior value creation, the payback period from the investment for an agricultural producer or a farm could be as short as 1 year.

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“We offer our clients an end-to-end solution helping them create significant value out of their underutilized resources. Besides the equipment that we produce in-house, we offer a complete service to ensure the solution’s successful implementation inclusive of an optimized biochar formula, support with biochar application in farming, and self-service materials. Inherent to our solution is carbon sequestration which happens from the production of biochar and its application to soil. We then facilitate carbon credits generation and provide carbon credits proceeds to the clients,” said Pawel Kuznicki, the Founder and CEO of WasteX. 

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He added: “We are honored to have gained the trust of such a formidable agricultural institution in The Norinchukin Bank. We are looking forward to exploring synergies with the new investor including knowledge sharing, and introduction to potential clients and partners.”

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Hiroki Kawabata, Senior Manager of The Norinchukin Bank, added, “We believe in the uniqueness of WasteX’s value proposition and approach to address decarbonization and improvement of farmers’ livelihood at the same time in a scalable and cost-effective manner. Together with the resources and network of The Norinchukin Bank, which has been at  the forefront of the Japanese agriculture industry, we are truly excited to see WasteX’s solution transform the way agriculture is operated, uplifting the living standards of small-holder farmers and bringing a more sustainable world.”

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WasteX previously raised $525,000 from Wavemaker Impact. The new investment from Norinchukin Innovation Fund L.P. at such an early stage of the company’s growth is a testament to the massive opportunity in biomass waste valorization as well as WasteX’s unique combination of the right technology, domain expertise, and execution capabilities. WasteX intends to utilize the funds to continue improving its technology and invest in commercial growth.