Bengaluru, Jan 20 (.) In a significant boost to India’s circular economy efforts, deep-tech start-up PolyCycl has secured Series A funding from Rainmatter, the climate and sustainability investment initiative of Zerodha, to scale its chemical recycling technology for hard-to-recycle plastics.
The funding will be used to accelerate commercial deployment of PolyCycl’s proprietary process, which converts low-grade and contaminated plastic waste into purified hydrocarbon oils that can be reused as circular feedstocks by the petrochemical and manufacturing industries.
Plastics commonly used in everyday life, such as grocery bags, packaging films, shampoo bottles and food containers, are manufactured from hydrocarbons extracted from crude oil. While these products are often discarded as waste after use, the hydrocarbon molecules embedded within them remain intact.
However, conventional mechanical recycling struggles to process such plastics due to contamination and mixed materials, resulting in large volumes of waste ending up in landfills or the environment.
PolyCycl addresses this challenge through chemical recycling. Its technology liquefies hard-to-recycle plastics, including single-use polythene bags, into hydrocarbon oils, also known as pyrolysis oils. These oils recover the embedded hydrocarbons from plastic waste and, after purification, can be reintegrated into existing oil and gas and petrochemical infrastructure.
“Our core belief is that plastics at the end of their life still contain extremely valuable hydrocarbon molecules,” said Amit Tandon, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PolyCycl. “The problem has never been the lack of value, but the lack of technology that can handle dirty, contaminated, low-grade plastics at scale.”
The company’s decade-long research and development efforts have resulted in a fully continuous, patented process designed to handle real-world post-consumer waste streams. PolyCycl’s Generation VI technology platform, launched in 2025, has achieved Technology Readiness Level 7 and has been pre-qualified by major petrochemical companies.
“The Series A funding allows us to move from technical maturity to industrial-scale deployment,” Tandon said. “We are now focused on commercial projects that can integrate directly with existing petrochemical infrastructure.”
Nithin Kamath, Founder of Zerodha and Rainmatter, said plastics and end-of-life waste management require multiple solutions, adding that PolyCycl is attempting to address a critical gap by dealing with plastics that are currently difficult or uneconomical to recycle.
PolyCycl’s approach represents a shift from the traditional linear plastics economy, where crude oil is extracted, plastics are manufactured, used and discarded, to a circular economy model. In this system, hydrocarbons recovered from waste plastics are returned to the production cycle, reducing dependence on fresh crude oil.
“In a linear economy, the molecules are lost after one use,” Tandon said. “What chemical recycling enables is the recovery of those molecules and their return to the system, which is essential if we want plastics to be truly circular.”
The technology has strong everyday relevance, as it can process contaminated household plastics with food residues or detergent traces, materials that are typically rejected by mechanical recyclers. By converting solid, contaminated plastics into liquid hydrocarbon feedstocks, PolyCycl bridges the gap between waste management systems and the liquid-based requirements of refineries.
“Our system is designed for real-world waste, not ideal laboratory conditions,” Tandon said. “That means grocery bags, multilayer films and post-consumer plastics that are otherwise considered unrecyclable.”
Experts note that chemical recycling technologies such as PolyCycl’s can complement existing mechanical recycling infrastructure rather than replace it, enabling higher overall recovery of plastic waste. The model also offers economic benefits by unlocking value from materials previously considered worthless.
India generates millions of tonnes of plastic waste each year, much of which remains uncollected or improperly disposed of. With scalable, cost-efficient project designs and compatibility with existing industrial infrastructure, PolyCycl’s technology is increasingly being viewed as a viable solution to address both environmental and industrial challenges.
“Waste should not be seen as the end of the story,” Tandon said. “With the right technology, it can become the starting point for the next generation of materials.”
Through this approach, plastic waste is being redefined not as pollution, but as a valuable resource capable of re-entering the manufacturing cycle, supporting India’s transition toward a more sustainable and circular economy.
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