Founded in 2016 at IIT-Delhi, the Gurugram-based company develops materials science-led solutions focussed on clean technology and sustainability. It has developed a proprietary catalyst technology that can be retrofitted into diesel generators to cut harmful emissions.
Chark Innovation plans to use the capital to expand manufacturing capacity, enter international markets, and step up R&D investments, including setting up a dedicated materials science centre focused on critical materials.
Kushagra Srivastava, founder and CEO of Chakr Innovation, in a conversation with ET, said that materials science is emerging as a strategic priority for India, not just a commercial opportunity. He pointed to recent supply chain disruptions with China over rare earth magnets, noting that Chakr is part of government panels working on ways to reduce such dependencies.
“As AI becomes more powerful and important and energy requirements increase, materials science as a field is going to play a critical role. If we look at innovations, much of these have been enabled by materials science or by new materials that have been developed’’, said Srivastava.
Further, the company said the new funding will also help scale its flagship product Chakr Shield, a retrofit emission-control device that reduces diesel generator emissions by over 80%.
Alongside emission-control solutions, the company has developed aluminium-air technology as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries.
Chakr Innovation won the ET Startup Awards 2025 in the social enterprise category. The company claims to have more than 5,000 installations across 2,000 customers, and operates manufacturing facilities in Gurugram and Pune. Its investor base includes SBICap Ventures, ONGC, IAN, and Inflexor.
In FY24, it reported a net profit of Rs 9.5 crore on revenues of Rs 124.8 crore, according to Tracxn. The company employs over 450, including more than 200 engineers and scientists, and has filed 42 patent applications.
Speaking on the investment, Ashok Ananthakrishnan, partner at Iron Pillar, said, “In Chakr Innovation, we discovered a rare home grown deep tech company tackling India’s pollution crisis and energy storage challenges. What attracted us to Chakr was the mission driven culture and the successful commercialisation of its R&D efforts in a short span of seven years’’.