Greenjoules Series B Reaches Rs 150 Cr, TDB Lends Rs 100 Cr

Pune renewable fuels startup Greenjoules has raised Rs 150 crore in Series B and taken a Rs 100 crore loan from a government board.

The Greenjoules press release of November 11 names Amazon’s Smbhav Venture Fund and Climate Pledge Fund as co-leads. Rainmatter, Zerodha’s investment arm, and Singularity’s Strategic Autonomy Fund also put money in.

The round is about 4.5 times the Rs 33 crore Series A that Blue Ashva Capital led in 2021. Blue Ashva still holds the largest stake, 52.5% of the shares in November 2023. The full greenfield plan, though, runs above Rs 600 crore.

Rs 88 Crore of the Greenjoules Series B Is New Money

Only part of the Rs 150 crore is fresh news. An August filing showed Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings buying 40,338 Series B1 preference shares for Rs 45 crore.

Singularity took 15,238 of the same shares for about Rs 17 crore. That works out to roughly Rs 11,150 a share for both.

The share class name, Series B1, is the proof that both sit inside this round. So about Rs 88 crore of today’s figure is newly disclosed.

Greenjoules has pulled in over Rs 600 crore since it started in 2018. Four people set up the firm: S. Viraraghavan, Radhika Viraraghavan, Shweta Viraraghavan and Sethunath Ramaswamy.

Rainmatter is a new name on the share register. Singularity was already in from August.

TDB Lends at 5% Simple Interest, Up to Half the Project Cost

The Technology Development Board sits under the Department of Science and Technology. Its funding guidelines set the loan rate at 5% simple interest a year.

On a Rs 100 crore loan, that is Rs 5 crore a year in interest. Repayment starts one year after the project is finished.

The money then comes back in nine half-yearly instalments over four and a half years. Borrowers also pay a royalty of 0.2% to 0.5% of sales, or 1% of profits.

For loans above Rs 5 crore, the board funds at most half the approved project cost. A Rs 100 crore loan therefore points to an approved outlay near Rs 200 crore.

Startups with a project under Rs 5 crore can get up to 70% funded. The borrower must show where the rest of the money is coming from.

The board announced its backing on June 5, 2026, for a project called Manufacturing of 2nd Generation Diesel Equivalent Biofuel. The Rs 100 crore figure is what is new today.

Rajesh Kumar Pathak, who is secretary of the board, put it this way:

“Advanced biofuels derived from agricultural residues represent a critical pathway towards achieving energy security”

Rajesh Kumar Pathak, secretary, Technology Development Board. From the PIB release, June 5, 2026.

The Khed City Plant Targets 73 Million Litres a Year

The money goes into a new plant at Khed City, near Pune in Maharashtra. The plant is designed for 200,000 litres of biocrude a day.

Run every day of the year, that is about 73 million litres. Building starts in phases from 2027.

Greenjoules expects it to become India’s largest plant of this kind. Biocrude is an oil-like liquid, refined later into renewable diesel and bio-naphtha.

The feedstock is farm waste: rice husk, sugarcane press mud and paddy straw. The process has a name: Integrated Catalytic Thermocracking.

Renewable diesel from it runs in existing engines and fuel pipes without any change. The product is sold as Abhilasha Biofuels.

India buys more than 80% of the crude oil it uses from abroad. That import bill is the market Greenjoules is aiming at.

Rs 250 Crore Covers Under Half of a Rs 600 Crore Plan

By its own account, the full greenfield programme runs above Rs 600 crore. Today’s Rs 250 crore is under half of it.

Two biorefineries are under construction, one near Pune and one at Raipur in Chhattisgarh. Together they are planned for 7.5 million litres of biofuel a year.

So at least Rs 350 crore of the plan is still unfunded in public. No date has been given for the rest.

Amazon is now in through two funds, Smbhav Venture Fund and Climate Pledge Fund. The Climate Pledge Fund began in 2020 with $2 Bn.

ISCC Biocircular certification has been renewed three years running. The Series A money, Rs 33 crore, went into the first commercial plant.

The registered name is Greenjoules Private Limited, based in Pune district. Rainmatter is the investment arm of Zerodha.

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