Kerala startup blossoms with banana sector plans

Talk to Fariq Naushad and Previn Jacob Varghese, and you’ll see the duo overflowing with ideas to revolutionise banana trading in India. Then, delve a little deeper; you’ll learn that the co-founders of Greenikk, an agritech startup based in Trivandrum, had a rollercoaster journey before they secured 5.3-crore-rupee (some 643,000 US dollars) funding to pursue their vision.

Months went by as they experimented with different options, leading to difficult times. Their families, relatives, and former classmates became disenchanted with their idealistic dream. They even rented a place to avoid going home and facing sceptics, confesses Jacob.

The scepticism over their new passion was understandable. Naushad and Varghese had spent months developing environmentally-friendly straws made from papaya stems. The project won them an award at the Tata Social Enterprise Challenge in 2020, but turning it into a commercial success proved difficult due to the challenges in securing a steady supply of raw materials.

“We tried different things and realised that our path wouldn’t lead to our goal of making a profound change in the Indian agriculture scene,” says Jacob.

The two engineering graduates from Trivandrum were driven by a desire to make a significant impact through sustainable agriculture and eco-friendly ventures.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, they quickly adapted their projects to overcome the pandemic restrictions and ventured into bringing vegetables directly from farms to apartment buildings. It was a successful operation. However, as restrictions eased and direct sales to consumers decreased, the B2C model shifted to a B2B venture.

But the duo still felt something was missing. They were making only minor changes to an established trade, not the profound impact they sought. So, they decided to refocus on their original dream plans.

“We were making a daily turnover of 65,000 rupees by supplying farm produce directly to restaurants, but we decided to end it because it was not what we wanted,” says Jacob.

Nonetheless, the vegetable supply operation opened their eyes to the potential of the banana trade and the problems the unorganised sector was experiencing. It marked the beginning of a steep learning curve for Greenik.

The banana trade was a decades-old system with multiple components, and even after spending days at the Trivandrum market, the duo still felt clueless. So, they decided to drive down to major banana-producing areas in Tamil Nadu, like Theni and Dindigul, to learn the ropes there. 

As newbies in the trade, the Greenikk co-founders experienced some financial losses.

“We were learning the trade the hard way. IT startups often launch an app and try to convince farmers to change their traditional practices, but that usually fails. We didn’t want to fall into that trap. We wanted to learn from the ground up and establish a physical presence first. We needed to gain the trust of farmers and traders,” says Jacob.

Before introducing high-tech solutions, Greenikk focused on helping banana farmers increase their revenue.

They noticed that nearly 20 crore banana stems were burned after harvest. So they offered to buy it for fiber-making companies that needed a steady supply of such materials. This idea soon developed into a new business line for Greenikk as bags and mats made of biodegradable material were gaining popularity in the environmentally conscious Western markets.

Jacob says the firm recently received an unexpected order for 15,000 bags made with banana fibre from a French company and is in the process of sending out the first batch soon.

But Greenikk’s primary focus is still revamping the banana trade in India. They are establishing enabling centres where farmers can get help across the entire gamut of banana trade. “Technology we can bring in any time. But we need to establish ourselves as a trusted platform,” the co-founders point out. 

As they were fine-tuning the business plan last year, the co-founders came close to running out of funds more than once last year. “We were down to the last dollar two or three times,” recalls Jacob. But finally, a group of angel investors stepped in to stop them from going under.

The funds Greenikk raised recently will be used to strengthen its presence in key banana-producing areas. It will be achieved through physical centres that provide farmers with various services, including seed procurement, financing, insurance, and market networking.

The startup aims to expand its team to 20 members by the end of the year to support these efforts. The co-founders say their team is slowly evolving. “More than expertise, what we are looking for is passion and interest in the job—people who do not mind getting their hands dirty,” say the duo.

Under their brand name Ohkela, the company is spreading its roots in the banana trade with a focus on steady growth. Its annual turnover for the current financial year is expected to reach six crores.

Greenikk is also entering the banana chips market and has already received orders from several dealers in the United States. It also aims to crack the markets in Europe and East Asia. Besides, it has plans to explore the market for other varieties of bananas like Nenthran.

A second round of funding is aimed for next year after expansion plans into other areas are settled.

The company has been trading bananas seriously for only two years, but it has already become a multi-crore turnover venture. It gives Jacob and Naushad the energy and enthusiasm to aim to drive the turnover toward the 100-crore mark in the next financial year.

Naushad and Varghese have been pursuing their dream for some time. Finally, they now seem to be on course to realise it.

You’ve got mail and you better open it

Wipro has a problem. They have about 20,000 Gen Z employees who simply ignore the company emails. CEO Thierry Delaporte revealed during the Davos economic conference that many of their young employees don't open even one email a month. The company is now attempting to bring these employees into the company's communication network and Delaporte is using Instagram and LinkedIn to stay in touch with his young colleagues, reports the New York Post.

Despite predictions about the death of email being a recurrent topic on tech websites, a 2022 survey by Statista found the use of emails will continue to grow. However, emails can still be hit or miss for business communication. The TikTalk Newsletter also found several startups with "info" and "HR" email ID handles that rarely open their emails. However, there is a risk in ignoring emails, as we know of at least one startup which recently discovered a major international deal offer through a cold email that ended up in their spam folder. So here is a pro tip: when you are a startup, you cannot afford to leave any path unexplored. So guys, keep checking your emails.

China’s Baidu joins the AI chatbot race

Hardly a week goes by without artificial intelligence making headlines. This time, it comes from China's Baidu, one of the largest internet companies in the world. Baidu plans to launch its AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT and integrate it into its main search services, according to Bloomberg. This move is in line with Beijing's push to control the AI sector, including data, software, and hardware. It will be interesting to see how much freedom the authorities will allow Baidu, as a robust AI chatbot could pose a challenge for the censors who closely monitor what appears on the Chinese internet. Baidu has invested billions of dollars in developing Ernie, a powerful AI model with 10 billion parameters.

A blueprint that will help you stay young forever 

It's not uncommon for startup founders to dive deeply into their businesses. But Bryan Johnson, a US tech tycoon, has taken it to a new level by immersing himself in his health tech company's experiment called Blueprint, which aims to reverse the aging process. Johnson, who is 45 years old, follows a strict health regime that includes a vegan diet of 1,977 calories, a combination of rare supplements, rigorous workouts, and monthly blood tests, MRIs, and colonoscopies. According to Bloomberg reporter Ashlee Vance, who observed Johnson for a day, he undergoes a detailed routine. The team of 30 doctors running the experiment claims that Johnson now has the heart of a 37-year-old, the skin of a 28-year-old, and the lung capacity and fitness of an 18-year-old. Are we about to see more Benjamin Buttons on the pipeline?

Please bear with these selfie-obsessed animals

When officials at a wildlife park in Colorado placed high-tech cameras across the 46,000-acre forest, they thought technology would help them get a snapshot of the wildlife in the area. But little did they know about a selfie-obsessed bear that was roaming in the area. The black bear just couldn't resist and officials found that 400 of the 580 pictures the motion-triggered cameras took were of the same bear posing in different ways. The photos, captured in mid-November of last year, were taken by one of the nine wildlife cameras operating across the protected land, according to Insider. But the officials still don't know if the bear is male or female, “as the bear didn't take that kind of selfie”, they say.