Pune-based Ecogen, a climate-smart deep tech startup, earlier this month announced that it has raised Rs 54 crore and is in talks for its balance amount of Rs 200 crore. Founded by IIT Kharagpur alumni Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pandey, Ecozen’s technologies have been deployed in agriculture for irrigation and cooling. The products are a solar pump controller called Ecotron, which captures about 20 percent of the Indian market, and a solar cold storage chamber called Ecofrost, which makes up 50 percent.
“For farmers who do not have access to electricity, we provide Ecotron, which uses a controller and motor that is ours, to produce more. At present, a lot of farmers are dependent on grid connected electricity and diesel pump sets. We help them reduce diesel costs and increase their yields. Because of efficient irrigation, they can get three or four crops,” says Gupta in a telephonic interview. Cold storage rooms enable farmers to keep their commodities fresh longer as they determine where and to whom they want to sell their produce.
As the Indian market grows, Ecogen anticipates that their business will more than double compared to last year. “The investments we have made will enable us to increase our capacity and facilities to meet domestic demand, even as we try to enter other markets in Africa and Southeast Asia. We are also trying to form a team to look after the exports,” says Gupta. In a major change, the company is exploring the use of its core technology in areas outside agriculture, such as electric vehicles. “Part of the capital we have raised will go towards creating innovative products for these sectors,” says Gupta.
The 2019 Climate Resilient Agriculture Project, a national innovation that studied the impact of climate change on agriculture, found that yields of crops such as rice, wheat and maize were particularly vulnerable. Ecozen’s answer to unseasonal rains and depletion of groundwater is to bring in controls and methods to conserve water, “where a farmer is able to schedule and manage it in a better way”. “They can use powered irrigation to do their farming and save their crops. Through these mechanisms, we are trying to help farmers manage climate change a little better,” he says.
Ecogen is present in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Odisha and Jharkhand and is targeting UP, Rajasthan, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and southern belt. “The products are capital intensive so we are targeting progressive customers across India. We are on a mission to make people climate smarter and better able to handle the uncertainties of climate change,” he says.
Kenya, where the company is conducting pilot projects, presents an acute new challenge. “There irrigation penetration is less than 15 per cent. The infrastructure including roads and logistics is not very good. Commodity prices are very high. We think the economic solutions that our technology can provide in Africa is enormous. We are trying to demonstrate that using smart and sustainable solar-based solutions for irrigation and cold storage will help improve livelihoods in Africa,” he says.
The world is experiencing its hottest summer, which makes the intervention of governments, organizations, individuals and companies all the more intense. “I hope that, while things are moving south, we have people trying to figure out ways to get it under control. But, when that happens, there will be difficulties and challenges and technologies moving forward.” will be important,” says Gupta.