PUNE BioPrime AgriSolutions is an emerging advanced agri-biotechnology company developing biologicals that build resilience in crops against climatic conditions and insects/pests, using targeted physiology modulating biomolecules.
This Pune-based agri-biotech startup is redefining agriculture and transforming lives by “bringing back profits” and a sense of pride to farmers.
The innovative products developed by this startup optimises plant processes to build climate resilience by modulating the plants’ basic physiological responses using small trigger ‘bio’ molecules to ‘prime’ responses.
In the beginning…
BioPrime co-founders Renuka Karandikar and Amit Shinde, were friends since their MSc and PhD (Plant Sciences) days at the University of Pune, today, the SPPU. Shekhar Bhosale, the third cofounder has done his PhD in Botany also from the University of Pune and specialises in mycology and bioactive compounds that form fungi.
After her PhD, Karandikar did her post doctorate in genetic engineering in collaboration with Australian company ‘Cambia’, while Shinde worked with KF Bioplants as their research and development head and Shekhar was working at the Science and Technology Park incubation centre within Pune university.
Says Karandikar, “In 2015, I had job offers as a scientist but I was thinking about doing something different and meaningful. Each of us three cofounders have published over 15 papers in peer reviewed journals. Shekhar and I have a patent, but that is where our research stops and it was very disheartening. We wished that there would be some commercial application of our research.”
“Our expertise and understanding in plants is much better than just being biomedical and hence, we focussed on agriculture. I started BioPrime as a proprietary firm. Shekhar and Amit then left their jobs after a few months. We interacted with multiple stakeholders from the seed and seedling industry, agriculture, nurseries, farmers, producer organisations. We understood some of their problems and worked on them on project basis and came up with solutions. A year later, in 2016, we concluded that we can create some formulations on the basis of our biomolecules,” she added.
Climate-change resilience
While interacting with the stakeholders, Karandikar and her team realised that climate change is a huge problem, especially for small farmers which are about 80 per cent of the total, in the country.
“The challenge for them is that while they can’t adopt modern technologies, land under cultivation will always be less and so the only way to increase income is by increasing productivity. Increasing productivity does not necessarily mean increasing produce, but to manage costs for good harvest. For smallholder farmers, a single crop is the most important source, contributing nearly 60 to 80 per cent of their income. If that crop is affected due to any reason, be it a heat wave or unseasonal rains, then the farmers suffer huge losses. We wanted to solve this issue and focussed more on climate change resilience,” Karandikar said.
Government support
Recently during the initial outbreak of Covid19, the entire country witnessed a supply-chain disruption and the impact it had on smallholder farmers with respect to the agri-input costs was massive. Karandikar and team BioPrime had realised this way back in 2016 and had started making new biomolecules, technologies and modes of action which are sustainable, eco-friendly and affordable for farmers.
Says Karandikar, “We would have required huge capital for setting up the labs equipped with advanced analytical instruments to validate our technology. However, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (Birac) provided us with a proof-of-concept grant-in-aid funding of ₹40 lakh in 2016. Apart from this funding, we did put in our own funds of total ₹80 lakh as and when required.”
“We incubated our startup at the NCL-Venture Centre on basis of this funding. We used the lab facilities on a plug-n-play basis to validate our technology. After this validation, the government again supported us for the pilot-scale validation stage. We received the Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (Seed) fund of ₹30 lakh and Launching Entrepreneurs for Affordable Products (Leap) fund of ₹1 crore from Birac. We were also helped by NITI Aayog through their ‘Atal New India Challenge’ in which they had eight priority sectors and ‘climate resilient agriculture’ was one. We had won that challenge and they supported through a ₹1 crore grant-in-aid,” she said.
“Thankfully, these fundings we received at the time when Covid-19 hit, otherwise it would have been very difficult for us to survive these two years,” Karandikar added.
On-field experience
Conducting experiments in labs and trials in the fields are altogether opposite experiences. BioPrime too had their share of such experiences.
“We approached one seedling industry through our seniors’ reference. They gave us 10,000 seedlings for our first trial which was carried out successfully. Our emergence rate was high and the plants had germinated at a faster pace. We gained confidence that we could build a product based on our lab experiments and trials. It was established that seedling industry could benefit from our products. The next step was to conduct trials on fields of farmers. Although we went to select 10 farmers from Yedgaon in Junnar region of Pune district, who had received our seedlings, they were sceptical. We had to make eight visits to the farmers, just to convince them to allow us to do trials on their fields,” recalls Karandikar.
“We had to assure the farmers that if the crop suffers any damage, we will pay them the entire amount. Even then we were allowed trial only on a part of their field (rows) that was affected with virus infections. However, since our products were good, those rows also recovered and then we got half the land plot for trials. That year, in 2016, we had five heat waves which were 50-year-highs for record and due to which the tomato crops were destroyed everywhere. Farmers had then protested against some seed companies. On the other hand, the land on which we had conducted trials were unaffected. That helped us gain acceptance in the farming community,” Karandikar added.
Co-development with farmers
Karandikar says after the field trials, they got lot of feedback from farmers which led to simplification of their product offerings.
“Our products were drip-based which could not be used outside Maharashtra. So, we had to make the formulations in granules and we had to spend one-and a-half-year making that product. It was a kind of co-development with farmers,” stated Karandikar.
She also shared another learning experience from Punjab. “During the trials, we had gone to Punjab where a farmer said he could not ‘see’ the results. When we checked we could not understand why the farmer is not convinced about our results. We then realised that farmers base their judgment on visual appearances without even going to the field. They were ‘looking’ for something ‘green’ in their fields, but greenness does not contribute to stress tolerance of the plants. So, we ran a counter-campaign saying a green farm does not necessarily mean ‘good’ farm.”
Product offerings
“BioPrime works with small and large plant breeding companies as well as organisations conducting basic research. All products are stage-specific and offer climate change mitigation solutions to farmers. Our aim is to make every harvest successful irrespective of adverse conditions or climate change impact. Farmers can start using our products at any stage of the crop cycle. Agronomists from BioPrime or the channel partner’s team recommend products based on crop applications and schedules,” says Karandikar.
“We can define batches and compositions with 100 per cent guarantee. It means our product will not deviate in future batches. The biomolecules are also stable which gives good control over shelf-life and storage. Currently we have validated three years shelf life, and we are now looking to extend it to five years,” she says. Says Karandikar, “We look at ourselves as becoming research and development partner for the world. We are doing co-development with the MNCs. It will reduce their time-to-market considerably. With our SNIPR platform, discovery can be achieved at lower cost, risk is reduced and probability of success increases. At present we have two companies with us for multi-product multi-year development projects, but their names can’t be disclosed.”
Venture funding
BioPrime closed its first venture funding – undisclosed amount of pre-seed fund – from venture Capital firm ‘Omnivore’ in December 2021 under its OmniX Bio initiative to back early-stage agritech and life science startups.
Karandikar said, “We are revenue positive, cash positive since beginning. We raised the funding because we want to grow 10x. Along with Omnivore, we also have a large industrialist from agriculture domain who has invested in his private capacity. We are expanding our labs capacity three times with the help of this funding.”
Future plans
Says Karandikar, “In next 10 months we will be looking to do our series A funding round of about $6 million. Our previous investors will also double down on their investment.”
“Besides, we are working on very specific microbes which do association with plants. Within one year, we will build India’s largest library of 10,000 plant associated microbes. Currently our scientists have put together past 30 to 40 years agroclimatic data and crop success-failure data. We have integrated this data and 80 locations have been identified pan-India,” she said.
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