Two former Zetwerk executives bet that India's manufacturers need more than monitoring—they need money to decarbonize
BENGALURU—The pitch is ambitious, perhaps more than most seed-stage startups dare articulate: Build sensors to measure factory emissions. Design cleaner industrial products. Then create a financial company to fund it all.
That's the plan Vijayanand K and Raghav Jaju are pursuing at Grevoro, a six-month-old climate tech venture that just closed ₹43 crore (roughly $4.7 million) in seed funding. The February 27 round came entirely from two family offices—the Atha Group and Misra Group—both steeped in the kinds of heavy industries Grevoro aims to transform: mining, steel, infrastructure.
For founders who cut their teeth at Zetwerk, India's buzzy manufacturing platform now eyeing a $500 million IPO, the transition from supply chain orchestration to industrial decarbonization might seem like a leap. But Kumar and Jaju argue they're solving the same problem from a different vantage point. Indian factories, they say, are caught between rising global emissions scrutiny and a shortage of capital earmarked for green retrofits.
"The funding unlocks two things," Kumar explained in the company's announcement. They'll use it to ready what they're calling a "manufacturing intelligence platform"—essentially IoT sensors paired with AI analytics to track CO₂, energy draw, and particulate matter in real time. But a chunk of the capital is also reserved for something less common among early-stage startups: meeting the net-worth threshold required for a non-banking financial company license.
When Compliance Becomes a Business Model
Grevoro didn't choose its timing arbitrarily. On January 1, 2026, the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism shifted from trial run to enforcement, requiring importers of steel, aluminum, cement, and other carbon-intensive goods to purchase certificates reflecting embedded emissions. For India—whose steel sector alone accounts for about 12% of national greenhouse gas output—that's not a distant policy abstraction. It's a tariff with teeth.
Domestically, pressure is mounting too. India's securities regulator, SEBI, now mandates that the country's largest listed companies disclose ESG data across their value chains starting this fiscal year. That means OEMs are pushing suppliers—often mid-sized manufacturers with limited resources—to produce audit-ready emissions reports.
Grevoro's answer is a three-pronged system. First, the monitoring layer: sensors and software that promise to turn messy factory data into compliance-ready documentation. Second, a manufacturing arm that produces what it describes as "sustainable industrial products," including construction chemicals and modified bitumen infused with recycled materials. The company says it currently facilitates structural steel production for renewable energy projects and supplies construction chemicals for infrastructure builds.
The third piece, Grevoro Capital, is where things get more speculative. Incorporated in October 2025 with both founders listed as directors, the planned NBFC would offer ESG-linked loans and supply chain financing—essentially betting that once you've measured a factory's emissions and sold it greener inputs, the logical next step is lending against its decarbonization roadmap.
India's central bank requires new NBFCs to maintain minimum net owned funds of ₹10 crore by March 2027 for most categories. Grevoro's seed round helps clear that bar, though the company hasn't disclosed how much of the ₹43 crore is allocated to the license application versus platform development.
Familiar Faces, New Terrain
Both founders bring manufacturing bona fides. Jaju, a chartered accountant, spent time at Aditya Birla Global Trading, EY, and PwC before joining Zetwerk as VP and head of strategic business, overseeing polymers and new initiatives. Kumar logged years at JSW Steel, Electrosteel, and Vedanta before landing at Zetwerk as a category head.
Their backers know the territory too. The Atha Group operates sponge iron facilities and solar plants alongside mining interests. The Misra Group's portfolio spans iron ore extraction, steel production, and logistics—industries with hefty carbon footprints and, increasingly, regulatory headaches.
It's a strategic fit, though one wonders whether family offices—traditionally patient but sometimes insular sources of capital—will have the appetite to fund the kind of cash burn that hardware-plus-fintech models typically demand. Grevoro declined to specify whether additional institutional investors are in the pipeline.
Scaling Beyond the Pitch Deck
Grevoro, which filed incorporation papers on August 29, 2025, and secured its Legal Entity Identifier this past February, currently lists between 11 and 50 employees on its LinkedIn profile. The company operates from HSR Layout in Bengaluru and says it serves sectors ranging from renewables and infrastructure to textiles, electronics, and agriculture.
The funding announcement hints at near-term ambitions: Grevoro plans to enter an unnamed "new segment" by the end of FY27. Kumar and Jaju haven't elaborated, though the breadth of industries they're targeting—chemicals, textiles, electronics—suggests they're positioning the platform as horizontal infrastructure rather than a vertically focused solution.
Whether that approach can scale remains an open question. Emissions monitoring startups often struggle to convert pilot projects into recurring revenue, particularly when manufacturers view compliance software as a cost center rather than a strategic investment. Adding a lending arm introduces a separate set of challenges: credit risk modeling, regulatory navigation, and competition from established green finance players.
But if Grevoro can thread the needle—turning emissions data into a wedge for selling products, then leveraging both to underwrite loans—it might just carve out a category of its own. India's industrial base is projected to consume 240 to 260 million tonnes of steel annually by 2035, and someone will need to help those factories burn cleaner. The question is whether a six-month-old startup with a seed round and a sensor suite can get there before the carbon tariffs do.
