ET Startup Awards 2026 | Social Enterprise: Varaha delivers carbon dollars to smallholder farmers

Climate change is putting growing pressure on small farmers, who typically cultivate on one or two hectares. Erratic weather, poor soil health and rising input costs are squeezing their incomes. This year’s ET Startup Awards winner in the Social Enterprise category is building a way for these farmers to earn additional income from carbon markets while making their farms more resilient to climate change.

Varaha is helping farmers adopt sustainable farming practices such as regenerative farming, tree planting, biochar and enhanced rock weathering that improve organic carbon and moisture retention in soil and boost biodiversity, while reducing farmers’ dependence on synthetic inputs.

“We celebrate this honour together with the smallholder farmers we work with. They did the least to cause climate change and carry most of its cost,” said Madhur Jain, cofounder and chief executive of Varaha.


“As Asia’s largest carbon removal developer, Varaha helps corporates meet net-zero commitments while rewarding farmers for adopting climate-smart practices, cutting air pollution, and building soil health and resilience to bad seasons,” he added.

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Founded in 2022 by Jain, Ankita Garg and Vishal Kuchanur, Varaha uses proprietary AI and satellite-based technology to measure and verify these outcomes across millions of fragmented farms. Varaha then sells verified carbon credits to global companies including Google, Microsoft, Lufthansa, Swiss Re and JP Morgan. It also works with companies such as Louis Dreyfus, Kellanova, Mars and Nestlé on carbon-insetting and sustainable sourcing programmes.

The company has onboarded more than 200,000 smallholder farmers across over 2 million acres in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire, sequestering more than 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Its artisanal biochar projects have distributed more than $4 million to farmers, while generating over 2,600 ancillary jobs.

The company is also restoring degraded landscapes, including the Banni Grasslands in Gujarat, and says its interventions have conserved more than 2.4 million litres of water.

The business has grown rapidly, with revenue nearly doubling to Rs 105.2 crore in FY26 from Rs 51.7 crore the year before. Net profit rose to Rs 1.8 crore from Rs 1.1 crore. It has raised more than Rs 700 crore in funding and was last valued at Rs 2,085 crore.

Varaha expects revenue to more than double to Rs 224 crore in FY27, driven by long-term offtake agreements, new projects and expansion across geographies. Its larger ambition is to make climate finance accessible to millions of smallholders historically left outside global carbon markets.

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Other contenders

Padcare Labs

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Cornext

The startup affordable silage baler machines and supplies baled silage to dairy farmers from its own production units. Silage is a type of fodder made from crops such as maize and sorghum, which is chopped, compacted, and fermented into bales that can be stored for up to 18 months and used in dry seasons, helping address India’s chronic fodder shortage.

Karo Sambhav

This circular economy startup builds nationwide collection and recycling networks for electronic waste, plastics, batteries, and glass. It also helps brands meet their Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) obligations per the environment ministry's regulations.

CureBay

The startup has built a hybrid healthcare network across rural and tribal India that combines tech-enabled eClinics with a large on-ground workforce to deliver doctor consultations, diagnostics, and medicines to villages in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.