New Delhi, Apr 07: ECOIL, a tech-enabled platform for the organised collection and responsible disposal of used cooking oil (UCO), has raised approximately $2.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Fundalogical Ventures. The round also saw participation from Caspian Impact Investment, Momentum Capital, and existing investor The Chennai Angels, while Shell had backed the company as an early seed investor. Right Pillar Advisors acted as the exclusive financial advisor to the transaction.
Founded in 2019 by Sushil Vaishnav and Kirti Vaishnav, ECOIL is building a scalable circular economy network for used cooking oil in India, enabling restaurants, hotels, and food businesses to safely dispose of UCO and ensuring it is channeled towards sustainable biofuel and aviation fuel production, instead of re-entering the food chain.
As India accelerates its push towards biofuels and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), feedstock availability has emerged as a critical constraint. While Oil Marketing Companies continue to expand refining capacities, the upstream ecosystem for sourcing used cooking oil remains highly fragmented. Globally, markets such as Europe and the United States have demonstrated that robust waste feedstock supply chains are essential to scaling SAF, and India is now approaching a similar inflection point.
Used cooking oil is a key feedstock for biodiesel and SAF, but its supply is widely dispersed across small sources such as restaurants and food businesses. In the absence of organised collection systems, UCO often re-enters the food chain, is lost through informal channels, or is disposed of improperly, leading to health and environmental risks. ECOIL addresses this gap through a technology-enabled collection and logistics network that ensures traceability, compliance, and efficient aggregation at scale, while also creating livelihood opportunities by integrating informal sector workers into the formal economy.
Sushil Vaishnav and Kirti Vaishnav, Founders of ECOIL said,
“We are excited to welcome Fundalogical Ventures as strategic partners in ECOIL’s journey. Their extensive experience in logistics, ports, and shipping will strengthen our operational capabilities. As logistics forms the backbone of our model, their guidance will help us accelerate expansion across India. Our mission is to ensure that every drop of used cooking oil is responsibly collected and managed.”
Anil Saldanha from Fundalogical Ventures said,
“ECOIL is addressing a critical bottleneck in India’s biofuels ecosystem – reliable feedstock aggregation at scale. With increasing demand driven by biodiesel and SAF blending targets, the challenge lies in upstream collection and supply chain efficiency. We see this as a strategic opportunity to support ECOIL in strengthening sourcing, transparency and enabling reliable feedstock availability, at scale.”
Vijayalakshmi NM from Caspian Impact Investment added,
“We are pleased to back ECOIL in building a sustainable circular economy for used cooking oil, transforming a health and environmental hazard into a valuable resource for biofuel production. The company’s model also creates meaningful livelihood opportunities by integrating informal workers into the formal economy, driving both climate and social impact.”
Ankur Shrivastava from Momentum Capital added,
“ECOIL demonstrates that India’s sustainability ethos can power global solutions. Circularity for used cooking oil has long been discussed, but building a traceable and reliable supply chain has remained a key barrier. Sushil and Kirti have shown that this problem is solvable, unlocking meaningful offtake that did not exist before. We are excited to be part of their journey and to support their global scale-up.”
Right Pillar Advisor’s Pulkit Bachhawat said:
“This transaction reflects a strong conviction in India’s rapidly evolving waste-to-energy and circular economy ecosystem. On the back of regulatory and sustainability tailwinds, ECOIL has developed a structured ecosystem for waste oil collection, preventing its entry into the food chain, while reducing the supply gap for the fast-growing biofuel industry”
This funding will enable ECOIL to scale its operations, strengthen its technology platform, and expand its footprint across key markets in India.
