Sistema.bio, a Nairobi-based biogas company established in 2010, has successfully concluded a $53 million first funding round for its new climate finance fund, FarmCarbon. This fund is specifically designed to enhance the affordability of clean energy technology for smallholder farmers across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Key supporters of this funding round include BNP Paribas Asset Management, British International Investment (the UK’s development finance institution), and Shell Foundation.

The newly secured funds are earmarked for the deployment of over 90,000 biodigesters. These innovative systems convert livestock waste into valuable biogas, which can be utilized for cooking and electricity, alongside producing organic fertilizer. This organic fertilizer helps farmers reduce their reliance on chemical inputs, promoting more sustainable agricultural practices. This latest capital raise complements a previous $3.5 million investment from Sistema.bio, which secured funding from Novastar Ventures in early 2025 as part of a larger $7.75 million internal round aimed at supporting the company's expansion throughout Africa.

FarmCarbon operates on a straightforward yet impactful model designed to benefit farmers directly. Farmers receive biodigesters at a significantly reduced cost, either upfront or through a flexible payment plan. In exchange, they transfer the rights to the carbon credits generated by their farms to the FarmCarbon fund. The fund then sells these carbon credits to various buyers via long-term contracts. The revenue generated from these sales is subsequently used to reimburse the investors who initially funded the biodigesters. This ingenious system allows farmers to essentially exchange the environmental benefits they produce for access to clean energy technology and hardware.

Farmers experience immediate advantages, including reduced energy expenses, lower fertilizer costs, and improved farm productivity, all without the burden of paying the full upfront cost of the technology. Alexander Eaton, CEO and co-founder of Sistema.bio, emphasized that the fund represents a significant progression in the company's 15 years of work. He stated, “FarmCarbon takes the biodigester proven solution and makes it accessible at an even larger scale, paying the economic benefits of carbon credits forward to farmers.”

FarmCarbon specifically targets one of the most underfunded challenges in climate finance: the reduction of methane emissions from livestock waste. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, contributing significantly more to global warming in the short term than carbon dioxide. Sistema.bio estimates that the 90,000 biodigesters financed by FarmCarbon will capture and eliminate enough methane to achieve an emissions reduction equivalent to over nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next decade. Despite methane's considerable impact on global warming, it remains an overlooked area for investment within climate finance. FarmCarbon was meticulously designed to channel institutional capital into this critical gap, ensuring that the benefits of emission reductions directly reach the farmers who generate them. Sistema.bio currently operates across 35 countries on three continents and has positively impacted over 200,000 users since its inception.