Bengaluru-based specialty chemicals firm altM has secured $10.3 million in a Series A funding round, with Rainmatter by Zerodha and Mela Ventures collaborating with current investors Omnivore, Theia Ventures, Aureolis Ventures, Spectrum Impact, and some strategic angel investors.

The funding will be allocated to enhance altM’s manufacturing abilities, research and development efforts, and customer validation initiatives.

Established in 2022 by ex-Tesla manufacturing executives Apoorv Garg and Yugal Raj Jain, along with bioprocessing expert Harshad Velankar, who later became the chief scientific officer, altM is creating a specialty chemicals platform that transforms agricultural waste into high-performance industrial chemicals.

“India has a vast domestic agricultural residue resource, and by converting this excess into high-performance biochemicals, Apoorv and Yugal are revealing strategic industrial value,” stated Abhinav Negi, lead - Climate & Deep Tech, Rainmatter by Zerodha.

altM’s procedures transform lignocellulosic biomass such as sugarcane bagasse, rice straw, and various agricultural residues into inputs utilized in beauty and personal care, textiles, industrial chemicals, construction, packaging, and consumer products.

The platform utilizes the primary components of biomass — cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin — to generate various products from one feedstock.

“altM is addressing a significant challenge in industrial chemistry: developing advanced materials that can compete with the performance of fossil-derived materials,” stated Krishnakumar N, managing partner, Mela Ventures.

Apoorv Garg, co-founder and CEO of altM, stated that fossil carbon has been the foundation of industrial manufacturing for over a hundred years.

“We are creating a new source of industrial carbon using agricultural waste,” Garg stated.

“We concentrate on creating materials and production techniques that enable clients to utilize these materials at the necessary performance, cost, quality, and scale for industrial uses,” he stated.

After securing its $3.5 million seed funding in 2023, altM has established a unified R&D and pilot manufacturing center in Bengaluru, consolidating laboratory research, demonstration manufacturing, and pilot production in a single location.

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In under two years, the firm has increased its laboratory presence close to five times.

It has launched its demonstration manufacturing facility and progressed six molecules to demonstration scale, with three chosen for pilot plant production.