Mati Carbon
Location
India, Tanzania, Zambia, Cameroon, Vietnam, Ethiopia
Sector
Agriculture
Type of Investment
Grant
Project Stage
Test & Transition
Length of Investment
2025+
Website
Investment Overview
Mati Carbon uses enhanced rock weathering, a carbon removal technology, to deliver a range of agronomic benefits for smallholder farmers. GIF's investment is helping them to build the organisational foundations for growth.
The Development Challenge
There are more than 500 million smallholders in the global south, who depend on their farms to provide food for their families and provide household income. However, many smallholder farmers suffer from low productivity, exacerbated by a lack of access to appropriate inputs and poor soil management practices. Further, smallholders are extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
The Innovation
Mati Carbon specialises in enhanced rock weathering (ERW). Natural weathering processes lead to carbon dioxide removal when rainwater interacts with rock to form carbon acids, and this process can be accelerated by applying fine silicate rocks in areas of high rain fall. ERW not only removes carbon from the air, it also add vital nutrients to the soil and improves soil stability (important for water retention) such that participating farmers can observe an increase in yields and crop resilience.
Mati provides ERW services free of charge to smallholders in India, Zambia and Tanzania. It invests in rigorous measurement of the rates of carbon dioxide removal in order to generate carbon credits, which have the potential to not only cover the operating cost of providing the service to farmers, but can generate a surplus which can lead to additional income beyond that realised through yield improvements.
Our Investment
GIF is supporting Mati Carbon to invest in organisational foundations which will better enable it to navigate growth and achieve its ambitions long-term goals. Specifically, GIF’s investment will enable Mati to improve its approach to gathering data and learning on farmer-level outcomes and ensuring that it has the appropriate technology for collecting, storing and analysing this data.
The investment will enable Mati to engage external expertise to review and improve its approach to risk management and financial controls, with a particular focus on embedding a high standard in the management of environmental, social responsibility and governance (ESG) aspects of its business. If successful, GIF's support will help build organisational resilience and readiness, which will in turn crowd-in subsequent investment.
Progress to date
Mati began working with farmers in India in 2021 and launched in Zambia and Tanzania in 2024. To date, they have reached more than 16,000 farmers, observing significant increases in yields, and resilience to both pests and climate shocks. During this period Mati has focussed on developing the methods needed to demonstrate carbon dioxide removal and generate carbon credit sales, the efficacy of which was recognised with the prestigious award, the Carbon Removal XPRIZE in April 2025. This enabled the organisation to further initiate trials in new countries in Asia and Africa.
It has sold significant volumes of carbon pre-purchase and delivery controls with a range of buyers and is working toward verification for carbon credits in multiple countries. Once verified Mati will be able to sell credits to underpin growth and reduce costs with the potential to benefit millions of the world’s poorest farmers.
