Nigerian Clean-tech Startup Raises $4M Seed Fund

Kaltani, a Nigerian clean-tech plastic waste recycling company, $4 million in seed funding to expand its recycling operations across the country.

The startup has already secured a US$4 million funding round, with which it plans to construct 20 new collection and aggregation centres across Nigeria and hire over 500 new employees.

These upgrades will significantly increase Kaltani’s capacity, allowing the company to recycle up to 15,000 tonnes of plastic trash per year.

“The world has a plastic pollution crisis. Plastic waste is an environmental disaster causing environmental degradation to our oceans, aquatic life, the air we breathe and our health. With the amount of plastic waste produced set to continue skyrocketing, the world desperately needs actionable and scalable solutions,” said the founder of the startup, Obi Charles Nnanna.

“At Kaltani, we have already proven that our solution and model works effectively and efficiently with a thorough A-Z value chain solution, and we are beyond excited to commence our expansion into other parts of Nigeria,” he added.

The company was founded by Obi Charles Nnanna in a bid to address Africa’s growing plastic waste challenge by promoting the circular economy and recycling best practices.

Currently, the stratup employs about 100 people across its collection points, recycling factory, and offices. These are the employees who are in charge of collecting bottles and other plastic garbage and transporting it to its collectionpoints for aggregation and processing before being delivered to its recycling facility

At the factory, the plastics are subsequently processed into hot washed PET flakes, PE and PP pellets, and sold to FMCG firms for thermoform, sheet, packaging, bottling, and fiber applications.

To provide transparency and traceability throughout the value chain, Kaltani’s technology employs data analytics, predictive analytics, and geo-mapping.