Varaha's CDR explosion : Google, Louis Dreyfus & India Scale - Madhur Jain & Ikarus Janzen

In this episode of This Week in Carbon, we speak with Madhur Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, and Ikarus Janzen, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer of Varaha—one of the top 3 global suppliers of high-quality CDR credits in 2025 (per CDR.FYI). They share how Varaha scaled to profitability in just 3.5 years across 4 CDR pathways, delivered 100,000+ tons of biochar, and landed landmark deals with Google and Louis Dreyfus. We explore India’s emergence as a CDR superpower, the insetting revolution for resilient supply chains, and why traction follows traction in smallholder agriculture.We discuss: Founder journeys from VC and agribusiness to building a 200-person CDR powerhouse CDR market segments: legacy avoidance vs. nature-based vs. durable removals (and Varaha’s unique 4-pathway edge) How deep ag expertise + digital MRV unlocked rapid scale amid 6-14% yield drops from climate chaos The Google biochar bombshell: 100K tons by 2030 from India’s 100M tons of waste biomass Louis Dreyfus’ first-of-its-kind insetting deal: 5-year wheat resilience + premiums for sustainable cotton (15¢/t-shirt) Buyer pressures: Shareholder ESG targets + consumer premiums fueling food/textile insetting Farmer realities: Droughts, geopolitical food crises, and turning mitigation funds into adaptation wins India’s 2030 vision: Vast land, cheap solar, and basalt riches positioning it as the world’s CDR hub