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India is the world’s third largest importer of crude oil. It meets a staggering 82% of its oil wants by way of imports. Such excessive reliance on imports has been inflating India’s crude import invoice for years and widening the commerce deficit. A method for decreasing the nation’s dependence on crude oil is to provide biofuel, like seaweed. This drawback might be solved if India produces sufficient seaweed (macro-algae) round its shoreline to make the required biomass.
Realizing this, Nelson Vadassery began Seas6 Vitality in 2010 together with Sri Sailaja Nori and Sowmya Balendiran below the experience of Shrikumar Suryanarayan, the then President of Analysis and Improvement at Biocon. Incubated on the IIT Madras campus, Sea6 goals to provide a carbon-neutral alternative for fossil fuels. To resolve India’s dependency on crude oil, seaweed must be transformed to biofuel. For that, it must be produced at a really low worth and huge scale, and that is the place ocean farming comes into the image. “We found that agriculture within the oceans was very a lot doable, however the expertise concerned in doing so was fairly underdeveloped. We noticed a chance to make a distinction there,” says Vadassery.
The startup has developed expertise which permits its units to succeed in the deep waters for seaweed and helps it convert it into commercial- use merchandise similar to plant biotimulants, plant well being stimulants, gelling brokers, and biodegradable sheets. Its flagship product, AgroGain, is a patented biostimulant product which improves crop yields and reduces utilization of fertilizers. Sea6 largely is determined by sourced seaweed (automated, handbook, and farm buy).
Its seaweed manufacturing methods are at present below growth and so they plan to begin manufacturing on a big scale this yr by organising 1 sq. kilometer of automated seaweed farms. Its mechanized ocean farming system facilitates harvesting and seeding of seaweed which might be farmed anyplace within the ocean.
Headquartered in Bangalore, the corporate has raised over $27.4M over 13 years with $18.5M in 2022 itself. Other than offering its providers and merchandise in over 20 international locations, the yr noticed the startup make farming developments and develop new merchandise for agriculture and animal feed. Vadassery shared that the corporate was now going to develop seaweed derived plastic replacements.
Factsheet:
No. Of Co-Founders: 4
No. Of Workers: 100+
Yr Of Inception: 2010
Traders: Tata Capital Improvements Fund; Aquaspark; Silverstrand Capital; BASF
