Global IndianstoryMaking trash talk: These Indian startups are turning the spotlight on waste management

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Making trash talk: These Indian startups are turning the spotlight on waste management

Written by: Global Indian

(September 20, 2021) Did you know, urban India generates 62 million tonnes of waste annually? As much as 50% of this waste is dumped in landfills untreated and toxic; a mere 20% is treated. The figures are staggering, but what is more astonishing is the lack of awareness towards waste management that continues to prevail in most urban communities. At the root of this issue is the lack of proper segregation of waste at source itself. This is compounded by careless disposal and collection. The cycle is never-ending and it is only adding to the burden on the country’s ecological resources.

However, in the past few years, a new crop of entrepreneurs has emerged; they are turning the spotlight on waste management and upcycling. They use everything from discarded tires, jeans, papers, to e-waste to turn them into meaningful pieces that gives the product a new lease of life, while helping ease the burden on our burgeoning landfills. Global Indian highlights the work being done by some of these startups.

Upcycler’s lab

Amishi Parasrampuria

Founded in 2014 by Amishi Parasrampuria, a University of Bath alumna, in Mumbai, Upcycler’s Lab has been changing the way people view scraps and waste. The company fashions home décor and gift items from old vinyl records, scraps and waste that are collected from individual donors and waste aggregators. A thorough cleaning process and quality check are conducted before giving them a completely stylish makeover. The company also designs collaborative board games, puzzles, storybooks and eco-alphabet flash cards that are based on environment-related topics in a bid to introduce children to the topics of waste segregations, forest and wildlife conservation and climate change among others.

So far, Upcycler’s Lab has received two grants from Powered Accelerator: the first for $10,000 in 2018 and an undisclosed amount later in 2020. The company is now looking to raise seed funding to further scale the business which also has a presence in Germany, Kuwait, and Singapore.

Paperman Foundation

Mathew Jose

Launched in Chennai in 2010 by Mathew Jose, an Ashoka Fellow, Paperman was initially focused on school recycling programs. As it spread its reach across schools in South India, the company also introduced a breakthrough technology platform: on-demand doorstep recycling, a mobile app that connected households with kabadiwallas (trash collectors). Paperman, which was launched with the objective to accelerate recycling in India has been conducting public awareness programs, managing processing units in partnership with various state governments, turnkey contractors for setting up recycling units and other ancillary services. Jose, who worked with the US Department of State in its International Visitor Leadership Program, also launched the Trash Funding program in 2015; this is akin to a kick-starter model to raise fund for local non-profits. The company has also been working towards becoming a Trash Economy accelerator by helping India manage its trash through a circular economy model.

Anthill creations

Pooja Rai

Founded in Bengaluru in 2014 by IIT-Kharagpur alumna Pooja Rai, Anthill Creation has been building playgrounds for kids using recycled material such as tires. The Ashoka Changemaker’s first project was in a Bengaluru slum area, which set the ball rolling for several more projects including a library at a Bengaluru school and now over 250 such playground across 16 Indian states. The idea is to revitalize public space, but in a responsible and eco-friendly manner. Their mission is to encourage interactive learning environments in public spaces with a primary focus on sustainability. The idea for the playgrounds stemmed when Rai saw the lack of open play areas for kids and spotted children playing with broken pipes instead.

The organization was part of IIM-Bangalore’s first incubator program for non-profit organizations. Today, Rai’s work is supported by donors such as Tata Steel, Bharat Petroleum, PNB Housing, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, Wells Fargo and Cisco among others.

Namo e-waste

Akshay Jain

Launched in Delhi in 2014 by University of Greenwich alumnus Akshay Jain, Namo e-waste has been specializing in waste management with a focus on e-waste. The company’s philosophy is that what is a useless device for someone can turn into a useful device for another. The company processes up to 20 tonnes of e-waste on a daily basis with collection centres across 12 states and union territories in the country and has also built strategic partnerships with leading electronic companies. The company developed a technology that is based on manual dismantling, segregation and recycling of e-waste such as discarded phones and computers among other things. The material is granulated in an electrostatic separator where metals and hazardous content are segregated, with no emissions whatsoever. These are then recycled into usable items and Namo e-waste aims to provide green alternatives to electronic assessments.

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Published on 20, Sep 2021

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Meet Akshay Ruparelia, the British Indian entrepreneur who became UK’s youngest millionaire

(October 20, 2021) It was the Fall of 2017 when a 19-year-old Akshay Ruparelia was studying hard for his A Levels in the UK. The Indian-origin teen had his eyes set on a university education at Oxford, one of UK’s most prestigious institutions. However, Akshay wasn’t your typical school-going teen. He was also calling the shots at his just over a year-old startup Doorsteps. The online real estate agency that had been disrupting a traditional, centuries-old industry was finding its moment in the sun. And so was Akshay. The company had just been valued at £12 million just 16 months after its launch and Akshay had become UK’s youngest millionaire. Today, five years later, Akshay may have moved on from Doorsteps, but he’s become a name to reckon with in the world of real estate and startups for his keen business acumen. In 2018, he was ranked sixth by The Sunday Times Rich List in Britain’s Millionaire Entrepreneurs Under 30, while Startups.co.uk included him in their list of 15 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2018. By 2019, The Great British Entrepreneur Awards listed him in their 20 Most Exciting Entrepreneurs to Watch For and this year, he was included in Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Technology

ong>, while Startups.co.uk included him in their list of 15 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2018. By 2019, The Great British Entrepreneur Awards listed him in their 20 Most Exciting Entrepreneurs to Watch For and this year, he was included in Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Technology list.

Turns out, this young Global Indian had always had an entrepreneurial streak.

[embed]https://twitter.com/bbcideas/status/1280095900128468992?s=20[/embed]

The Harrow lad who made it big

Akshay was born in 1998 in Hemel Hempstead in a Gujarati family: both his parents are hearing impaired. His father Kaushik Ruparelia is a care worker, while his mother Renuka a teaching assistant and support worker for deaf children. His parents impairment meant that Akshay had begun shouldering responsibility from a young age along with his elder sister. When his family moved to Harrow, he attended Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet. The Indian-origin youngster had always had an entrepreneurial streak from a young age and would often sell sweets for a new PlayStation, sell colognes or start a new app. In an interview with Love Money he’d said, “I’ve always enjoyed the feeling of trading and working with new ideas, outside the framework of the school curriculum.”

Akshay was exposed to the real estate industry at a young age when his parents were looking to move the family home from Hempstead to Harrow. The experience exposed him to how real estate agencies functioned, the services they offered and the costs involved. By the time he was 17, he began to notice several gaps in the market and the exorbitant costs involved for the home buyer.

British Indian entrepreneur Akshay Ruparelia

Starting small

That’s when he decided to launch Doorsteps, a disruptive new online real estate agency that drastically cut down agent fees and made selling and buying homes a whole lot easier. He’d borrowed £7,000 from relatives to start the website and would hire call centers to take client calls while he was at school. Once he’d get home from his classes, he’d begin returning those calls.

His first breakthrough came when his first client, a man from Sussex, asked Akshay to sell his house and a chunk of land next to it. “I had to pay my sister’s boyfriend 40 pounds to drive me to Sussex to take photographs of the house, as I hadn’t passed my driving test and didn’t have a car,” he told Hindustan Times in an interview. He was able to sell the property and land within three weeks and that set the ball rolling for this youngster.

British Indian entrepreneur Akshay Ruparelia

Before long, he’d begun to expand his team and hire employees to aid his work. His model was based on hiring a network of self-employed mothers across the UK, who would show clients around the properties he’d listed. “Quite rightly people trust mums. Every mum who works for me will be honest and tell the truth. It is important. For the majority of people selling their home is the biggest financial transaction of their lives,” he told the Daily Mirror.

Breaking ground

Within 16 months of launching Doorsteps, the company became the 18th biggest estate agency in the UK. What worked in Akshay’s favor was his keen business acumen. He stuck to one office, worked with local property consultants and focused on customer service. Doorsteps allowed people to sell their property for a set fee (a fraction of the market rate) from the comfort of their homes.

His idea to set up a small business stemmed from his reading of Ryanair founder Michael O’Leary’s biography. “Mr O’Leary began by selling flights for just 4.99 pounds. His point was that if you can offer customers something at a price they can’t believe and you deliver what you say you will, you hook people in and your business will work,” he said. He also followed brands such as Uber and Amazon to learn disruptive business tactics.

British Indian entrepreneur Akshay Ruparelia

In an interview with Forbes, Akshay said that he imbibed his work ethic from his family. “My parents’ work ethic is amazing. Dad was kicked out of Kenya with his family and moved to the UK. Being deaf (both Akshay’s parents and one of his sisters are deaf) made things even more difficult. But they worked very hard, saved, scrimped and became independent from their family. That’s where I get my work ethic from – not only from an imitation point of view and role modelling, but my desire to succeed was initially driven by the goal of changing their lives for the better.”

His business grew quickly under his leadership and in 2020 Doorsteps was valued at £18 million making it the third largest online estate agent and the 10th largest estate agent in the UK.

A bend in the road

Earlier this year, Akshay announced his decision to move on from Doorsteps following a strategic difference with his fellow director. In his statement, he’d said, “I am deeply motivated and passionate about the projects I will be moving onto, starting with AKR Growth Ventures. The purpose and mission of AKR Growth Ventures is to change lives by helping young founders, startups and charities disrupt out-of-date and out-of-touch business practices – through technology, organisational culture and exceptional performance.”

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWNT-wWiKz8[/embed]

Incidentally, Akshay had been offered a place at Oxford University to study Economics and Mathematics back in 2017. At the time, he decided to forego the admission to focus on his business. However, last year, the youngster completed the 10ksb program by Oxford.

Giving Back

The youngster, who’s been making waves in the world of business, also actively works to give back to the community he lives and works in. Akshay became the ambassador for the Royal Association of Deaf People, a non-profit organization, in 2020. He is also on the board of The Prince’s Trust RISE young philanthropy campaign. Apart from that he is the ambassador of the Harrow United Deaf Club and supports the Step Up to Serve program by iwill Campaign.

Follow him on LinkedIn

Reading Time: 8 mins

Vidyut Mohan: The Indian entrepreneur who bagged Eco Oscar for recycling agri waste

(October 25, 2021) Every year, reams of newsprint are filled with reports about the poor air quality in the country. Come winter, and news about smog in North India due to crop burning, a dismal air quality index, of a capital struggling to breathe, and schools and offices being forced to halt operations take over. In fact, the toxic haze can even be seen from outer space. The tug of war between governments and farmers looking to get rid of agricultural waste seems endless. This is when Vidyut Mohan, a Delhi-based entrepreneur stepped in with his startup Takachar. The firm has developed a unique technology to convert agricultural waste biomass into usable fuel and fertiliser, with the potential to change the way India breathes in the near future. Lending credibility to Vidyut’s work is the fact that Takachar recently bagged the inaugural edition of the Earthshot Prize under the ‘Clean Our Air’ category. Set up by Prince William and the Royal Foundation, the awards are dubbed as the Eco Oscars that honour initiatives that showcase human ingenuity in mitigating the environmental impact of climate change. The winners, who received £1 million to carry forward their work and research, were selected by a jury panel that included Indra Nooyi, Sir David Attenborough, and Prince William. [embed]https://twitter.com/EarthshotPrize/status/1450424956450480130?s=20[/embed] What Takachar does Founded in 2016, Vidyut began

ners, who received £1 million to carry forward their work and research, were selected by a jury panel that included Indra Nooyi, Sir David Attenborough, and Prince William.

[embed]https://twitter.com/EarthshotPrize/status/1450424956450480130?s=20[/embed]

What Takachar does

Founded in 2016, Vidyut began working on a solution to prevent stubble from being burnt. At the same time, he also wanted to create income opportunities for farmers. Since then, Takachar has been dramatically increasing the amount of crop/forest residues that are transformed into marketable products around the world. Takachar manufactures a small-scale and low-cost piece of equipment that uses oxygen-lean torrefaction to process waste biomass such as rice residuals and coconut shells into fuel and fertiliser. In an interview with The Print, Vidyut said, “[Our equipment] has its origins in the French-style roasting of coffee beans. It roasts the biomass in controlled air [in the absence of oxygen]. It takes out low energy molecules leaving behind carbon-rich material that can be used as fuel or fertilisers.”

This enables farmers to sell this carbon-rich material in the open market and make a business out of it. This in turn, becomes an incentive for farmers to avoid burning agri waste and break the toxic cycle of smog that takes over a majority of the country each year. "It eliminates 98% of the smoke compared to what is generated by open burning and mitigates carbon emissions,” explained the social entrepreneur who was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30.

Indian entrepreneur Vidyut Mohan

By reducing air pollution that arises due to the annual crop burning, and by making renewable biomass based activated carbon that is competitively priced when compared to fossil based activated carbon, the equivalent of up to 100 million tons of carbon dioxide can be mitigated each year.

Back to basics

Born in Delhi, Vidyut studied at the Sardar Patel Vidyalaya before graduating as a mechanical engineer from Bengaluru’s RV College of Engineering in 2012. He then moved to Netherlands for his Masters from TU Delft where he studied sustainable energy technology and sustainable entrepreneurship. After graduating from Delft as an honours student in 2015, Vidyut worked with Simpa Networks as a senior user experience researcher for two years before joining Berkley Lab as a bio energy consultant. He also joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s J-WAFS as a bio energy consultant.

Always passionate about the environment this Global Indian was always involved in eco projects. As a student he worked to estimate solar radiation and solar site surveys for The Energy and Resources Institute, and worked on the service system design of biogas energy services in rural Karnataka with SELCO Foundation among a host of other projects. In 2017, Vidyut was named an UNLEASH Energy Talent; he is a fellow at the School for Social Entrepreneurs India as well as an Echoing Green Fellow.

Indian entrepreneur Vidyut Mohan

After his initial research for his Masters’ thesis at TU Delft, Vidyut returned to India to work with village communities in the Himalayas to convert pine needle waste into a marketable charcoal-based product. It was during the course of this work that he discovered a way to dramatically scale farm residue utilisation through technology in order to support farm-based livelihoods. This eventually led him to found Takachar in 2016 along with Kevin Kung, where he developed the current technology to help farmers in India turn agri waste into fuel and fertiliser.

In an interview published in Tata Center, Vidyut said, “During the burning season, air pollution in Delhi is 14 times the safe limit. I want to change that. I have always been passionate about working in the field of energy access and creating income opportunities for poor communities. I believe this is the ideal approach for climate change mitigation in developing countries.”

He began by designing a small, low-cost device to roast agricultural waste at high temperatures. This ash is then converted into charcoal, fertilisers, and activated carbon that can be deployed in water filtration systems. Once the prototype was ready, Vidyut and Kevin attached the device to trucks and took it to over 4,500 farmers, some even in remote locations. They collected coconut shells, rice husk, and straw. Since inception, this device has processed over 3,000 tonnes of crop waste into marketable products.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6-pmufDFOc[/embed]

Takachar’s technology and equipment underwent a successful pilot program in Kenya where the fuel generated was sold to over 5,000 farmers. “We will now be embarking on a commercial pilot program using a commercial prototype in two parts of India. The first is at Rohtak with the World Food Programme using rice straws, while the second is near Coimbatore using coconut shells [as biomass waste],” Vidyut said.

Awards and recognition

Their efforts were recently recognised by the United Nations Environment Program, which named Vidyut a 2020 Young Champion of the Earth. The award provided Takachar with seed funding and mentorship to help tackle one of the world’s most pressing challenges.

The recent Earthshot award has come as a shot in the arm for Vidyut, who now hopes to work with 1 million farmers by 2030 and believes that Takachar’s technology could help prevent the release of as much as 700 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The award itself was a result of a nine month long vetting process. “After we were nominated, Earthshot reached out asking to submit an application,” Vidyut told The Print. The duo had to submit a video pitch about Takachar and attend a two-hour long interview before being selected among the top 50 finalists.

“We didn’t know ahead of time that we had won. It was completely unexpected, has resulted in a tsunami of interest from so many people and has put our work on the international stage,” he added.

Follow Vidyut Mohan on LinkedIn and Twitter

Reading Time: 10 mins

Pankaj Agarwal: The Indian entrepreneur changing edtech for rural India

(August 10, 2021; 6.30 pm) That learning will increasingly go digital is a given. Especially, in light of the pandemic that has brought the world to its knees and shut schools and colleges across the globe. 2020, touted to be the year of edtech startups, saw several enterprises step in to provide solutions for a smooth takeover of virtual classrooms. However, there was one glaring gap that couldn’t be bridged — what of rural India with its digital divide? That is when entrepreneur Pankaj Agarwal decided to introduce an app Class Saathi through his startup TagHive. The app works equally well in classrooms with and without computers. The solution does not require internet or electricity to work; only a smartphone for the teacher. The service uses a clicker solution that works alongside a mobile phone app which works well even in the offline mode – making internet connectivity issues redundant. In fact, one of Agarwal’s key focus areas has been to create solutions that will help reduce the dropout rates in India’s schools. His work, got him noticed and the 38-year-old was featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list this year. [embed]https://twitter.com/DoRA_IITK/status/1400290649266552833?s=20[/embed] Agarwal’s mission has been to reduce dropout rates in schools. In an interview with The

n to create solutions that will help reduce the dropout rates in India’s schools. His work, got him noticed and the 38-year-old was featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list this year.

[embed]https://twitter.com/DoRA_IITK/status/1400290649266552833?s=20[/embed]

Agarwal’s mission has been to reduce dropout rates in schools. In an interview with The Week, he said,

"The dropout rates widen as we go from grade 1 to grade 8. Our focus is to reduce the gap in the early stage."

According to Agarwal, a leading reason for the high dropout rates in India’s government schools is the learning gap that widens as the grade progresses. Class Saathi offers teachers special features to identify and reduce these gaps.

Journey to the top

According to his LinkedIn page, Agarwal knows the value of good education.

“I come from a small village in India which had no good schools. From there, I went on to study in the best of schools across 3 countries. That led me to believe that education is a great equalizer in life and that technology can help improve the quality of education,” he says.

Agarwal did his B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from IIT-Kanpur before moving to Seoul for his Masters at Seoul National University as a Samsung GSP Scholar. Upon his graduation, he joined Samsung Electronics in South Korea and worked there for over three years.

His thirst for knowledge though drove him to aspire higher. In 2010, Agarwal became the first international employee to be sponsored by Samsung for an overseas MBA and studied at Harvard Business School. This was followed by four more years at Samsung in South Korea: first as advisor to the CTO and then as Creative Leader at Tag+.

[caption id="attachment_7090" align="aligncenter" width="650"] That is where Pankaj Agarwal’s TagHive stepped in with its app Class Saathi which works equally well in classrooms with and without computers. Pankaj Agarwal[/caption]

Entrepreneurial journey

All along though, Agarwal knew he wanted to do something to give back to his country; especially in the education space. So, in April 2017 he quit his cushy job to dive headlong into entrepreneurship and founded TagHive, a South Korea-headquartered company that was seed funded by Samsung Ventures. Under TagHive, Agarwal launched Class Saathi, a learning solution tailor made for India. Requiring no electricity, internet connectivity, low maintenance and low cost, it is perfect for classrooms across the country; especially in rural India where the digital divide is a glaring chasm of uncertainty.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PxgJBMq7Po[/embed]

Based on the concept of quizzes, Class Saathi provides students with clickers which connect via Bluetooth with the teacher’s smartphone. The startup also ran a pilot project in Uttar Pradesh which found that attendance and learning outcomes of students had gone up significantly within a month. This led the UP government to invite TagHive to deploy its solutions across 200 schools, followed by a project for the Madhya Pradesh government covering 2,000 schools. Agarwal told The Week,

"Class Saathi is a lens that lets us now see things that were not possible earlier. It gives schools and governments tangible data to evaluate and assess the educational system."

When the pandemic struck last year and schools across the country were forced to shut down, Class Saathi began to focus on its at-home learning app with content for Math and Science tailored for classes VI-X based on the NCERT syllabus. The self-learning app can be used by students at home for self-evaluation and to gauge the learning process.

According to data by UNESCO, 1.2 billion children are out of school globally due to the pandemic and the unprecedented toll it has been taking on our education system. This is where an edtech solution such as Class Saathi steps in to ensure that students continue to be able to access education and Agarwal’s unique perspective has been helping the startup offer India unique solutions.

Reading Time: 8 mins

Neeraj Kakkar: The man who’s keeping traditions and memories alive, one drink at a time

(July 28, 2021; 6.15 pm) What are some of your earliest memories? We bet it involves happy times spent with your family and friends over some cherished food or beverage. For instance, it could be chugging a chilled glass of buttermilk after a summer afternoon spent playing in the sun with cousins. Or it could be haggling with the neighborhood chaat wala for an extra cup of spicy golgappe ka paani. Or sneaking into the kitchen to take a swig from that jug of sherbet your mother had prepared especially for the guests due to arrive at any moment. Somehow, memories and food go hand in hand. For Neeraj Kakkar, co-founder of Hector Beverages, it was this need to keep alive traditional recipes and innocent memories that drove him to launch the Paper Boat range of juices. Made with all natural ingredients just the way our mothers and grandmothers did all those years back, the Paper Boat range offers 13 varieties of traditional Indian drinks. These range from the much-oved aamras, aam panna, neer mor, panakkam, chilli guava, thandai, sherbet-e-khaas, rose tamarind, and kokum. [embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clTxVEqpGtE[/embed] How it all began As a young boy growing up in Haryana, Kakkar was especially fond

aam panna, neer mor, panakkam, chilli guava, thandai, sherbet-e-khaas, rose tamarind, and kokum.

[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clTxVEqpGtE[/embed]

How it all began

As a young boy growing up in Haryana, Kakkar was especially fond of Kaanji, a drink made of fermented purple carrots and mustard. His family lived in a large house that also accommodated several other families; their landlady Maati would painstakingly make a large pot of kaanji and place it in the patio. Each child was given a glass... one glass strictly. The drink was delicious and Kakkar always wanted more. He resorted to swiping an extra glass for himself when nobody was watching. When he was caught, of course, he got into trouble, he said during a TED talk.

Several years later, as a young man, Kakkar wanted to drink kaanji again; the flavors still fresh in his mind. He also wanted to introduce it in his line of products at Paper Boat, the company he had launched in August 2013 along with Neeraj Biyani, James Nutall, and Suhas Misra under the parent company Hector Beverages. The idea for Paper Boat came up during an office lunch between the co-founders as they mulled over potential business ideas. Commercial production of traditional Indian drinks was hitherto unheard of in a market that was largely dominated by carbonated beverages.

Paper Boat launched with two products: Aam Ras and Jaljeera; both well-known and well-loved across India. The idea took off and today the company offers several more varieties, some of them seasonal. The name Paper Boat too was specifically chosen to invoke a feeling of nostalgia. In 2016, Kakkar had famously said that every product launched by his company would have a tinge of Indianness; and the company has so far stayed true to his word.

[embed]http://twitter.com/paperboatdrinks/status/1405453555801083907?s=20[/embed]

From Haryana to the US and back

Interestingly, Kakkar had worked for nearly seven years with Coca Cola in India, before he did his MBA from The Wharton School in Philadelphia where he was a Palmer Scholar, one of the highest academic honors. He co-founded Hector Beverages with Biyani, Misra and Nutall in 2009 and they began manufacturing Tzinga, an energy drink. The company was backed by Narayan Murthy’s VC firm Catamaran and Bangalore-based Footprint Ventures had also invested ₹6 crore. By 2013, the company had raised a second round of funding of $8 million from Sequoia Capital and Paper Boat was launched later that year.

The team was bent on preserving traditional recipes and spent quite a few months on R&D. As they expanded their product portfolio, Kakkar still wanted to introduce his beloved Kaanji into the market. However, to his surprise the market was overtaken by the common orange and red varieties of carrots and farmers had all but stopped growing purple carrots. The teams research led them to find that purple carrots were being grown in Turkey. So Kakkar flew to Turkey, filled up a suitcase with 20 kgs of purple carrots and flew back to Delhi... only to have his entire stock confiscated. Crushed, Kakkar did the next best thing. He began importing purple carrot seeds from Turkey and had them planted in three cities: Palampur, Ujjain and Ooty. After 13 continuous trials they finally got a crop in Ooty and the company set about producing Kaanji. It's a different story that the drink didn’t pass the quality test and had to be temporarily shelved.

[caption id="attachment_6215" align="aligncenter" width="499"] For Neeraj Kakkar it was this need to keep alive traditional recipes and memories that drove him to launch the Paper Boat range of juices. Neeraj Kakkar[/caption]

Mentors who shaped him

While initially retailers were sceptical to stock the Paper Boat line, the drink eventually grew in popularity and is now available through various channels. But for Kakkar, who has been reinventing the whole ethnic beverage industry, there are key lessons he’s learnt from three mentors who shaped his perception of entrepreneurship. “First, Kanwaljit Singh, co-founder at Helion ventures, exposed me to the world of entrepreneurship during my internship period there. Kanwal encouraged me to work with a few startups in Bangalore who were doing interesting jobs. He also recommended food to be the best sector to start; when Hector Beverages was launched, he became our angel investor,” said Kakkar in an interview in Medium.

The second was Shripad Nadkarni, head of marketing at Coca Cola, and Kakkar’s former colleague, who helped them with the marketing and branding of the company. And the third was Narayana Murthy. “I would say the value system of our organization in some ways is a reflection of his personality. He has also been with us from day zero. He doesn’t interfere with our day-to-day work — he doesn’t tell us about what to do with our strategy, however on the value system, he has always had strong viewpoints and he kind of makes sure that we do not deviate from the right path,” he says.

Challenges to overcome

While the company saw an uptake in sales in FY2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Paper Boat sales in a large way, given the lockdowns and travel restrictions. Airports and Railway stations were important touch points for the brand. While production was completely halted for a brief period in 2020, it gradually resumed as the lockdowns eased. Now, the company is looking to expand its online-only range of products in a bid to thwart the effects of the pandemic and its resultant losses.

Reading Time: 10 mins

Kunal Shah: The Indian entrepreneur who went from selling henna cones to running a $4 bn business

(November 9, 2021) He has run over a dozen businesses since he was 16 before founding his current success CRED, a business valued at over $4 billion. Meet Kunal Shah, the serial entrepreneur who has been making all the right moves sans any fancy MBA or engineering degree in his portfolio. What he has though is a keen business acumen and an eye for startups that hold great potential. The philosophy graduate, incidentally dropped out of his MBA course at Mumbai’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies in 2004. But not many know that there was a time when this Global Indian would sell everything from henna cones to pirated CDs to support his family, which was then in the financial doldrums. The entrepreneur from Mumbai Born and raised in a Gujarati family in Mumbai, Shah’s father was into the pharmaceutical distribution business in South Mumbai. Shah realised the importance of money and financial independence early on in life when his family faced a financial crisis. That is when he went on to do several odd jobs to support his family: from selling henna cones and pirated CDs to running tuition classes and running a cyber cafe, he’s done it all. When Shah graduated in Arts and Philosophy from Wilson College, he chose

al4.jpg" alt="Global Indian Kunal Shah" width="960" height="640" />

The entrepreneur from Mumbai

Born and raised in a Gujarati family in Mumbai, Shah’s father was into the pharmaceutical distribution business in South Mumbai. Shah realised the importance of money and financial independence early on in life when his family faced a financial crisis. That is when he went on to do several odd jobs to support his family: from selling henna cones and pirated CDs to running tuition classes and running a cyber cafe, he’s done it all.

When Shah graduated in Arts and Philosophy from Wilson College, he chose to not join the family business and instead opt to work with a BPO called TIS International Inc as a junior programmer in 2000. In 2003, he even enrolled for an MBA at Narsee Monjee, but dropped out soon after. In an interview with YourStory he said, “I realised that I was better off learning on my own than through a structured programme, because the curriculums and theories were a lot more designed for scoring marks and not really understanding things. So, to me MBA as a format did not work,” he said.

Shah met Sandeep Tandon, an investor in TIS, who struck by Shah’s personality soon developed a lasting professional relationship with him. Shah worked with the BPO for over 10 years, before deciding to branch out on his own.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4px19xzK7zI[/embed]

The entrepreneurial streak

He then spent time working as a freelance designer and programmer before building a small SaaS company that underwent several changes and pivots to finally become Freecharge. He’d founded this with Tandon, and successfully ran it until 2016 when he chose to bow out and went on to serve as chairman and advisor to many companies such as BCCL, chairman of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, an advisor to Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital India. Incidentally, Freecharge was eventually acquired by Axis Bank.

By 2018, he decided to start up again and founded CRED, a member-only credit card payment app. The app allows members to manage all their credit cards in one place, sends them bill payment reminders and rewards them for timely payments. The startup generated massive buzz for its astronomical seed funding round and also for its unique business model.

Shah with his entrepreneurial streak, believes that one needs to risk capital to be able to grow one’s business. At the same time, he wants to see wealth of others grow as well. Shah said, “We see our fundraise as a responsibility to build a rewarding ecosystem for Cred members and an opportunity to share value with stakeholders. Hence, happy to also announce a $5 million ESOP buyback for the team members who have contributed to the Cred journey.”

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In a little over two years, CRED has amassed over 6 million users and is now valued at over $4 billion. But for Shah valuations hold little meaning; he believes that unicorn tags are the hopes and beliefs of stakeholders. Earlier this year he tweeted, “Unicorn tag, high valuations are all vanity metrics till the company delivers profits. Many companies like Amazon & Facebook were loss making for several years but became truly valuable only when they delivered profits.”

Entrepreneur with a difference

Shah is also a keen observer of consumer behaviour and has been focusing his businesses on offering people a great consumer experience. CRED has been rolling out several innovative features for members such as Rentpay to pay a monthly credit card rent for a small transaction fee, CRED Cash, an instant credit line accessible in three steps.

Interestingly, Shah is also not a big believer in degrees and qualifications when hiring talent for his company. “I am a philosophy major, I can’t care about other people’s degrees that much. I do believe in people who are generally excellent and believe in excellence and care about it, it may have demonstrated in many things. For example, one of our team members, a senior leader, has not even done graduation, the best degree that person has is 10th pass, but it’s okay,” he said in an interview.

Apart from running his own business, Shah is also an active angel investor and advocate of India’s startup ecosystem. According to a recent Hurun India report, Kunal Shah tops the list of entrepreneurs with the most number of investments in startups that may turn unicorn in the next few years. He is invested in nine such companies. Shah is followed by Binny Bansal and Ratan Tata.

Global Indian Kunal Shah

He is currently invested in over 50 companies including Ola and Gojek. His reasoning for investing in startups is simple. In an interview with The Ken he said, “The number one thing that I look at is what I can learn from the founders. My thesis for an investment, whether in angel rounds or up to Series B, is to be associated with the smartest minds. I let the founders determine the size of the cheque. During angel rounds, startups look for both money and potential learning or the investor’s ability to guide them from their own experience. Founders who believe I can offer that, approach me. I invest in companies and founders who are introduced to me and whom I can learn from.”

For a Mumbai lad who started off with working several odd jobs to stay afloat, Shah is now actively investing in startups in a bid to pay it forward and fund job creators for he believes that is the need of the hour: job creators.

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