In its Series C round, which was led by Iron Pillar, the cleantech startup Chakr Innovation, based in New Delhi, raised $23 million (Rs 193.5 crore). Existing investors SBI Cap Ventures, ONGC, IAN, and Inflexor also participated in the round.
Key Highlights
- Chakr Innovation raises $23M Series C led by Iron Pillar, scaling manufacturing, R&D, global expansion.
- Emission-control device “Chakr Shield,” indigenous aluminium-air tech, 5,000 installations; over 2.5 million tonnes CO₂ reduced.
The new funds will be used to boost backward integration, promote global growth, and increase manufacturing capacity. In order to lessen India's dependency on lithium-ion batteries, a sizeable amount will also be allocated to research and development expenditures, specifically in domestic energy storage technologies.
Chakr Innovation, which was founded in 2016 by graduates of IIT Delhi, is well-known for Chakr Shield, the first certified retrofit emission control device for diesel generators in India that lowers particulate emissions by more than 80%. The company claims to have reduced more than 2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions and has more than 2,000 customers and 5,000 installations.
As an alternative to lithium-ion batteries, the startup is also creating aluminum-air battery technology with entirely domestic raw materials. Metal-Air batteries, DG remote monitoring IoT solutions, and DeNOx systems are among its offerings.
Kushagra Srivastava, co-founder and CEO of Chakr Innovation, stated, "This funding is a major step toward realizing our vision of building world-class material science technologies from India." "We will strengthen R&D, grow internationally, and create India's first materials science center with these resources."
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With more than 450 employees, including 200 engineers and scientists, Chakr Innovation runs manufacturing plants in Pune and Gurugram and has submitted 42 patent applications.
In November 2021, Chakr Innovation raised its undisclosed Series B round, led by the Neev Fund II from SBICap Ventures.
Iron Pillar, a venture capital firm, closed its Global Cloud Fund II in April 2023, with a $129 million total corpus. Investing in Series B and C rounds of Indian cloud software and SaaS companies with international clientele was the fund's goal.
