Green Business Podcast

Are green fuels truly green? For example, rice husk, a popular biomass-based fuel, produces lot of ash when burned.  This ash can pollute the air, defeating the purpose of using a green fuel. Disposal of rice husk ash is a big issue for biomass-based power plants.

Tanmay Pandya, founder of BRISIL technologies uses this ash to create Silica, a widely used material. World consumes 5 billion dollars’ worth of Silica every year. There is far too much silica in our lives, from salt to cosmetics and even tyres. Silica is typically made from sand, but sand mining is increasingly getting banned as you and I need sand for our beaches. 

Tanmay studied chemical engineering at IIT BHU, and was interested in developing clean technology solutions for manufacturing industries.  A chance meeting with biomass power plant operators, helped him understand the problem of disposal of rice husk ash, leading him to start BRISIL.  

Tanmay and I had a very interesting conversation about

1.       Pollution caused by green fuels such as rice husk

2.       Market opportunity for green Silica

3.       Competitiveness of green Silica versus conventional Silica

4.       Scaling up BRISIL

What happens when a meat-lover marries a vegetarian? They eat plant-based meat and later launch a plant-based meat company.

My guest today is Roma Roy Choudhury from Evolved foods. She  discovered plant-based meat in Singapore while looking for food that she and her pucca vegetarian husband Pradeep could both enjoy. When they returned to India, they could not find such options, and decided to create them on their own.

Plant-based meat is a new category that is trying to make a name for itself. The challenges are numerous, ranging from making the product look and taste like meat to educating customers on why it is a good substitute for meat while remaining cost effective.

Roma and I had a fascinating discussion about the following:

1. Similarities and differences between plant-based meat and real meat

2. What makes plant-based meat environmentally friendly?

3. The product development process and the unique selling point of evolved foods

4. Establishing a new product category

5. Sales cycle of a plant-based meat start-up

When we catch cold or feel ill, doctors prescribe anti-oxidants to boost our immune system. I'm sure many of us got our fill of these during covid. What if fruits and vegetables could boost their immune systems and stay fresh without refrigeration? 
My guest is Deepak from Green Pod Labs (https://greenpodlabs.com/), which  is attempting to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables by using biotechnology-driven solutions that keep fruits fresh at room temperature, reducing the need for cold storage. His solution could transform the Indian horticulture sector, where 30 percent of produce spoils due to a lack of affordable cold storage. We discuss the following topics in this episode:

 1.       Technology behind Green Pods’ solutions

 2.     Market potential

3.     Product development process and regulatory environment 

4.     Green Pods plans to scale 

The future is electric and we want to be part of it. However, with electric scooters priced at around 1 lakh Rupees, buying a new electric scooter is expensive for many people. Further, they can’t let their good old Activas stay idle. Is there a way to get these existing workhorses onto the electric bandwagon? 

 In this episode, I speak with Ravikumar from Starya mobility, which is building a propulsion kit to convert any gearless ICE scooter into an electric scooter. Their retrofit kit is indigenously designed, ARAI approved, and is available for trials in Bangalore.

 There are more than 60 million conventional scooters on Indian roads and retrofitting these could potentially be an enormous opportunity. However, running petrol powered engines on battery is technically complex (akin to a heart transplant)) and there is no government subsidy on retrofitted electric vehicles. As a result, many start-ups retrofit service providers (primarily for commercial vehicles) have pivoted to manufacturing new electric vehicles.

 Can retro fitment work in two wheelers?  Ravi and I have an exciting conversation about the following:

1. The market opportunity for retrofits
2.  Performance and safety aspects of Retrofit scooters
3. Competitive advantages of Starya
4. Business model and go to market strategy

Vinay Chataraju is co-founder of Kritsnam technologies (https://kritsnam.com/), which provides digital solutions to measure and save water. Their IOT enabled water flow meters and software solutions enable industries to track & reduce their water consumption, thus eliminate water risk.

Vinay studied civil engineering at IIT Kanpur, he then worked in a number of startups for over 10 years before joining Kritsnam team in 2019.  He heads business development and is credited with on boarding several corporate clients such as Adani airports., Hero future energies

 Kritsnam has around 1,000 IoT sensors on field measuring various surface and pipe water flows across the country. The sensors have measured more than 10Bn liters of water in the last two years. 

In this episode we spoke about the following:

1.     Vinay’s journey of building Kritsnam
2.   The market opportunity for smart water technologies
3.    Building differentiated solutions 
4.   Fundraising for IoT startups

Excited to share a new episode, where I speak with Shreyans Kokra, founder of Canvaloop fibre (https://www.canvaloop.com/collections/al), which is transforming agri waste into fibres that can be spun in machines, and produce soft fabric.

India is endowed with abundant agriculture and agri based fuels present a huge opportunity to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. However, this sector largely remains unorganized, due to challenges related to unreliable quality and availability of such fuel.

My guest today is Ashvin Patil, founder of biofuels junction (https://biofuelsjunction.com/) that is building reliable supply chain for biofuels and helping large corporates such as Hindustan Lever, Marico, Thermax substitute their fossil fuels with agrifuels. The company supports small businesses in setting up biofuel  manufacturing facilities and aggregates such fuel supplies to meet the energy needs of its clients,

Ashwin and his co-founder Chaitanya spent nearly 15 years in Investment Banking, Equities and strategy at ICICI Group, Merrill Lynch, and Tata group before starting the company in 2017.   

Ashvin and I talk about the following

1.      His transition from financial services to Biofuels

2.      Biofuels and their climate impact

3.      Building a robust supply chain

4.      Scaling the business via bootstrapping

My guest today is Roshan Miranda from Bintix (https://bintix.com/), a data analytics platform that helps brands get insights on consumption pattern of their products through analysis of household waste.

Roshan is a biotechnologist, with a PhD in biology and genetics from Baylor college of medicine in Texas. He returned to India in 2015 to start waste ventures, a waste mgmt. company. While at waste ventures, Roshan saw the challenges in selling the waste, as majority of waste was FMCG waste such as chips wrappers/chocolate boxes, which do not fetch good value. He also saw that waste had a lot of information on what people were buying and consuming. So, he thought of extracting consumption related insights from waste to create additional revenue stream.

Bintix is present in 7 cities, it sources waste from 20,000 households and works with a number of FMCG companies in helping them understand their consumers.

By monetizing FMCG waste, Roshan is creating profitable/viable business model for waste management industry, thus enabling livelihood for thousands of waste collectors. We talk about the following

1.      Roshans journey into waste management

2.      Why do we have very few startups in waste management?

3.      What can brands learn about consumers though household waste?

4.      Challenges of scaling Bintix

My guest today is Anant Jain from Accelero Vehcles (https://ebik.in/about.html) which is enabling affordable electric mobility by helping people convert their bicycles into electric cycles.

India sells nearly 1 crore (10 mn)  bicycles per year and 60 per cent of these are black cycles (also called Roadster cycles), typically used by people for their commute to work or as a means of earning livelihood.  Given the hot Indian weather- that makes it difficult to peddle, Roadster users see a lot of value in an electric cycle.

Accelero is hoping to capture this market through e bike smart, a conversion kit that converts a Roadster bicycle to an ebike within minutes. For those, interested in buying a new cycle, it also offers competitively priced electric cycles.

 Anant worked in the energy sector for nearly 10 years before starting Accelero in 2017. He spent next three years in product development, before launching the product in 2020. In this episode, Anant and I talk about the following

1.      Market opportunity for ebikes and conversion kits

2.      Competitive landscape and Accelero's value proposition

3.      Charging infrastructure 

4.      Govt policies for electric cycles 

India has a huge deficit of green fodder (market size $3.2 bn) with supply being 25% less than demand. Hydroponics, an environmentally controlled and water efficient way of growing farm produce is very well suited to cultivate greens However capital costs are prohibitive and have deterred famers from adopting Hydroponic farming.

My guest today is Vasanth Kamath from Hydrogreens, which is solving this issue via providing Fodder – as- service (FAAS).  Vasanth is solving for the entire supply chain of fodder including enabling quality seeds, good cultivation practices, data driven advisory and support in selling the produce.

  In this episode, we  talk about

1.       Market opportunity for green fodder

2.       Unique strengths of Hydrogreen’s solutions

3.       Business model

4.       Hydroponic versus conventional farming-climate benefits