Tech
India’s Varaha bags $20M to scale carbon removal from the Global South
Varaha, an India-based climate tech startup, has raised $20 million in fresh funding as it looks to scale carbon removal projects from the Global South and position itself as a lower-cost supplier for verified emissions reductions.
The investment marks the first portion of a planned $45 million Series B round led by WestBridge Capital, the venture firm’s first investment in climate tech, with participation from existing investors including RTP Global and Omnivore. Founded in 2022, Varaha has raised about $33 million in equity to date, alongside $35 million in project financing and $500,000 in grants, as it builds carbon removal projects across Asia and Africa.
India has emerged as an increasingly important base for carbon removal projects, offering lower operating costs, deep agricultural supply chains, and a large pool of technical talent as corporate demand for verified removals rises, including from companies facing growing energy use from data centers and AI workloads. Varaha is positioning itself to capitalize on those advantages, arguing that its execution-focused model allows it to deliver carbon removal at lower cost while meeting the same international verification standards as higher-priced competitors in Europe and North America.
Varaha’s advantage lies less in proprietary technology and more in execution, said co-founder and chief executive Madhur Jain in an interview, arguing that high operating costs could become a constraint for carbon removal developers in wealthier markets as prices come under pressure.
“If carbon credit is a cost to the businesses that are buying these carbon credits … it’s a cost on their balance sheet. It’s not a CSR item,” Jain told TechCrunch. “And hence, if the cost of a certain geography is going to be so high by an order of magnitude of like, 1.5x to 3x credit production, it is going to be extremely hard for those companies to survive.”
Varaha develops carbon removal projects across four main pathways: regenerative agriculture, agroforestry, biochar, and enhanced rock weathering, working largely with smallholder farmers and industrial partners in emerging markets. The startup generates and sells verified carbon removal credits through international registries, including Puro.earth, Isometric, Verra, Gold Standard, and Switzerland-based Carbon Standards International, positioning itself as a supplier to global corporations seeking durable and independently validated emissions reductions.

To date, Varaha has removed more than 2 million tons of carbon dioxide across 14 active projects, generating around 150,000 carbon removal credits, Jain said. He added that the startup was the first in India to issue carbon credits from biochar projects and the first in Asia to issue credits from enhanced rock weathering through an international registry.
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Varaha reported revenue of ₹430 million (about $4.76 million) last financial year from delivered credits and expects revenue to rise to nearly ₹2 billion (around $22.15 million) this year, while remaining profitable after tax.
The startup has signed long-term offtake agreements with global buyers including Google and Microsoft, as well as corporates such as Lufthansa, Swiss Re, and Capgemini.
Varaha currently operates across India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Ivory Coast, working with about 170,000 to 175,000 farmers over roughly 1.7 million acres, Jain said. The latest funding will be used to expand into additional markets in South and Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and Indonesia, while deepening its presence in existing geographies.
The startup is also rolling out an Industrial Partners Program, which allows industrial operators with access to sustainable biomass and gasification capacity to generate verified biochar-based carbon removal credits using Varaha’s measurement, reporting, and verification systems. The program is already operational with partners in West Africa and India, including agribusinesses and a steel producer, as Varaha looks to scale carbon removal through partnerships rather than owning all assets itself.
“The problem is so big that tech, etc., will become open source over a period of time,” Jain said. “So what matters the most is the execution.”
Varaha employs about 225 to 230 people, including roughly 55 across technology, science, product and data roles, with more than 80% of its workforce based in India. While the startup does not maintain offices overseas, it has staff in markets including Nepal, Germany, the U.S., and Australia, reflecting its growing international customer base.
“We believe Varaha is uniquely positioned to build a global carbon-removal platform from India, combining integrity, scale, and impact,” said Sandeep Singhal, co-founder and managing partner, WestBridge Capital. “This investment reflects our conviction in the team and their potential to shape the next phase of climate infrastructure worldwide.”
Tech
Peak XV says internal disagreement led to partner exits as it doubles down on AI
Peak XV Partners, a leading venture capital firm in India and Southeast Asia, has seen a fresh round of senior departures. These follow other leadership exits over the past year as it pushes ahead with plans to deepen its focus on AI investing and expand its footprint in the U.S., while keeping India as its largest market.
The latest departures stem from an internal disagreement with senior partner Ashish Agrawal (pictured above, left) that led to a mutual decision to part ways, Managing Director Shailendra Singh told TechCrunch. He added that two other partners, Ishaan Mittal (pictured above, right) and Tejeshwi Sharma (pictured above, center), chose to leave alongside him.
Singh said Peak XV did not want to go into the specifics of the disagreement and was focused on moving forward. “Just out of privacy, and out of, like, trying to be classy about it,” he said. Singh added that such departures were not uncommon at large, multi-stage venture firms and that Peak XV wanted to move on quickly after several years of working together.
All board seats held by the departing partners would be transitioned “imminently,” Singh said, noting that the firm already had overlapping representation across several portfolio companies. He said Peak XV was not concerned about continuity, noting that multiple general partners and operating partners were already involved across many of those boards.
The departures mark the exit of long-tenured investors from the firm. Agrawal had been with Peak XV for more than 13 years, while Mittal spent over nine years at the firm and Sharma more than seven years, per their LinkedIn profiles.
Agrawal wrote in a LinkedIn post that he had decided to “take the entrepreneurial plunge” and was teaming up with Mittal and Sharma to start a new venture capital firm. He described the move as an opportunity to build a new institution with longtime partners and thanked Peak XV’s leadership for what he called a “truly wonderful partnership.”
During his time at Peak XV, Agrawal led investments across fintech, consumer, and software, including Groww, one of the firm’s most prominent IPO exits in 2025. He also backed multiple early- and growth-stage companies alongside Mittal and Sharma, contributing to Peak XV’s broader portfolio build-out over the past decade.
Agrawal, Mittal, and Sharma did not respond to messages for comments.
Peak XV has also moved to strengthen its senior leadership from within. The firm on Tuesday promoted Abhishek Mohan to general partner, expanding its investment leadership bench, while Saipriya Sarangan was elevated to chief operating officer, taking charge of firm-wide operations.
The leadership changes come amid a standout year for Peak XV’s portfolio exits. Five of its companies — Groww, Pine Labs, Meesho, Wakefit, and Capillary Technologies — went public in November and December 2025, generating roughly ₹300 billion (around $3.33 billion) in unrealized, mark-to-market gains for the firm, in addition to about ₹28 billion (about $310.61 million) in realized gains from share sales during the IPOs.
In addition to the latest departures, Peak XV has seen a broader churn in its senior ranks over the past 12 months. Last year, long-time investment leaders Harshjit Sethi and Shailesh Lakhani exited the India team, while Abheek Anand and Pieter Kemps departed from the firm’s Southeast Asia operations. The firm has also seen leadership changes across its marketing, policy, and operations teams in recent months.
Singh dismissed a view circulating in the market that many of the partners who drove Peak XV’s largest exits were no longer at the firm, calling the narrative “not statistically true.” He said several of the firm’s most significant outcomes had been led by long-tenured partners who remained at Peak XV, and argued that the firm’s exit track record did not hinge on any single individual.
Peak XV currently has seven general partners, along with multiple partners and principals, according to Singh.
The VC firm, which split from Sequoia Capital in 2023 and currently manages over $10 billion in capital across 16 funds, has made about 80 investments linked to AI, Singh said, highlighting its push to deepen its focus on AI funding. It is also preparing to open a U.S. office within the next 90 days as it expands its global footprint, per Singh, while continuing to view India as its largest and most important market.
Singh stated the firm believed AI would reshape venture investing more profoundly than previous technology shifts, arguing that successful AI investing required investors with deep technical understanding rather than “generalist” experience. He added that Peak XV was looking to add more AI-native talent, including researchers and engineers with backgrounds in machine learning and large-scale model development.
The firm has invested in more than 400 companies, and its portfolio has seen over 35 initial public offerings and several M&As to date.
Tech
PayPal hires HP’s Enrique Lores as its new CEO
PayPal said on Tuesday it is hiring HP’s Enrique Lores as its CEO and president, replacing current chief executive Alex Chriss. Lores, who has been the chair of PayPal’s board since July 2024, will also take up the role of president.
PayPal said the appointment was made because the company’s pace of change and execution was “not in line with the Board’s expectations” given broader market trends.
Chriss joined PayPal in September 2023 from Intuit, succeeding Dan Schulman. PayPal’s CFO and COO, Jamie Miller, will take over as interim CEO until Lores joins the company.
The appointment comes as PayPal on Tuesday reported lower than expected revenue and profit in the fourth quarter, as consumer spending dipped amid a broader cost of living crisis and a softening labor market. The company also forecast a dip in its full-year profit, which surprised investors, as Wall Street had broadly expected the company to forecast growth instead.
PayPal’s shares were down about 17.9% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
Lores, who served as president and CEO of HP for over six years, said that apart from product innovation, PayPal will hold itself accountable for delivering quarterly accounts.
“The payments industry is changing faster than ever, driven by new technologies, evolving regulations, an increasingly competitive landscape, and the rapid acceleration of AI that is reshaping commerce daily. PayPal sits at the center of this change, and I look forward to leading the team to accelerate the delivery of new innovations and to shape the future of digital payments and commerce,” Lores said in a statement.
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Tech
Fitbit founders launch AI platform to help families monitor their health
Fitbit founders James Park and Eric Friedman have announced the launch of a new AI startup called Luffu that aims to help families proactively monitor their health. The duo are developing an “intelligent family care system” that will start with an app experience and then expand into hardware devices.
Two years after their exit from Google, Park and Friedman are betting on AI to help lighten the mental burden of caregiving. According to a recent report, 63 million, or nearly 1 in 4, U.S. adults are family caregivers, up 45% from 10 years ago.
Luffu uses AI in the background to gather and organize family information, learn day-to-day patterns, and flag notable changes so families can stay aligned and address potential well-being issues.
“At Fitbit, we focused on personal health—but after Fitbit, health for me became bigger than just thinking about myself,” Park said in a press release. “I was caring for my parents from across the country, trying to piece together my mom’s health care across various portals and providers, with a language barrier that made it hard to get complete, timely context from her about doctor visits. I didn’t want to constantly check in, and she didn’t want to feel monitored. Luffu is the product we wished existed—to stay on top of our family’s health, know what changed and when to step in—without hovering.”

The pair note that today’s consumer health market is filled with tools for individuals, but that real life health is shared across partners, kids, parents, pets, and caregivers. Family information is scattered across devices, portals, calendars, attachments, spreadsheets, and paper documents.
With Luffu, people will be able to track the whole family’s details, including health stats, diet, medications, symptoms, lab tests, doctor visits, and more. Users can log health information using voice, text, or photos. Luffu proactively watches for changes, and surfaces insights and alerts, such as unusual vitals or changes in sleep.
The pair told Axios that people can ask questions using plain language to ask about their family’s health, such as “Is Dad’s new meal plan affecting his blood pressure?” or “Did someone give the dog his medication?”
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“We designed Luffu to capture the details as life happens, keep family members updated and surface what matters at the right time—so caregiving feels more coordinated and less chaotic,” Friedman said in the press release.
People who are interested in Luffu can join the waitlist for the limited public beta.
