<iframe src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-PHTV9K7" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">
Loading
Skip to Main Content
Product cover image for ExtraCarbon: Working for a Cleaner Future

ExtraCarbon: Working for a Cleaner Future

Rakesh Gupta; Lubna Nafees; Saumyajit Guha

Product #:9B20M044
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Entrepreneurship, General Management, International Business, Sustainability
Setting:India, 2018
Details:Case (PDF) • 13 pages • 2020-04-01

Subjects:

Waste management and recyclingEnvironmental sustainabilityBusiness managementLeadership and managing peopleEntrepreneurshipInternational businessManagement

Industries:

Public administration and nonprofits

Geography:

AsiaIndia
Your Price:$9.71

Purchase this material with a free Educator Account and enjoy more benefits:

  • Free Educator Copy
  • Free Teaching Notes
  • Build your coursepack
  • Discounted academic price

ExtraCarbon was a company focused on the sorting stage of India’s unorganized waste management industry. The company was founded in 2013 with owners’ capital and some investments from friends and family. In October 2018, one of these friend investors expressed a desire to exit the venture. Although ExtraCarbon had made steady progress since its founding, the company did not have enough money to buy out the investor’s stake, and the company’s valuation was too low for the investor to benefit from leaving the venture. The investor complained that the founders had never taken his advice to scale up the venture more quickly, which would have benefitted all stakeholders by providing a better valuation and attracting more investors to the company. The incident led the founders to review their current scale of operations and make more ambitious growth plans for the company, including setting an ambitious revenue target of US$6 million by 2021. The challenge was to identify resources and ways to achieve this target. What strategy would help the company reach its target in a largely unorganized industry?

Learning Objectives

This multi-faceted case is suitable for courses on entrepreneurship and small business, new venture creation, and entrepreneurial strategy in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The case helps students understand the key issues and challenges of setting up an entrepreneurial venture in an industry traditionally dominated by government agencies. After completion of this case, students will be able to
  • discuss the magnitude of India’s waste management problem and the challenges facing the government;
  • analyze the opportunities and challenges for private companies in what has essentially been a public service;
  • analyze the existing structure of the waste management industry and the challenges of scaling up a new venture in this market;
  • explain the importance of identifying the right set of investors and how the different objectives of different stakeholders can affect the growth of a venture; and
  • assess the challenges prevalent in the current practices of the waste management industry and the implications of these challenges.
Loading
Case Study: ExtraCarbon: Working for a Cleaner Future (English version) | Ivey Publishing