Each winter, photographs from Punjab and Haryana look the identical: rice stubble on fireplace, smoke drifting throughout the plains, and air pollution choking Delhi’s air. For many, it’s an environmental tragedy.

For altM, additionally it is a design flaw.

Based in 2022 by Apoorv Garg and Yugal Raj Jain, with scientist Dr. Harshad Velankar as co-founder and CSO, altM is constructing an “alternate supplies” ecosystem that makes use of agricultural residues – like crop straw – as feedstock for high-value molecules. Assume bio-based thickeners and gels for cosmetics, lignin-based resins for adhesives and plywood, and cellulose-derived biodegradable movies for packaging.

Each founders grew up in Delhi, then went overseas to deepen their expertise – Apoorv at Delhi School of Engineering and UC Berkeley earlier than stints in manufacturing and automotive, Yugal at NSIT and MIT adopted by Tesla, the place he managed complicated engineering programmes. At Tesla, ambiguity and scale had been the default – issues weren’t handed over neatly outlined; you needed to body them and construct methods round them.

After they returned to India in 2021, the winter air made the issue apparent once more. Industries like magnificence, packaging, coatings, and adhesives are closely depending on fossil-based molecules and are notoriously onerous to decarbonise. To Apoorv and Yugal, stubble was now not “waste” – it was uncooked potential.

Their core thought: waste is an engineering error, not an inevitability.

By 2023, altM had superior a number of molecules to demonstration scale – quick by biomaterials requirements. Cosmetics offered an early win, with bio-based thickeners that might match efficiency expectations whereas reducing the carbon footprint. From there, the corporate started focusing on sectors the place regulation, sustainability strain, and efficiency calls for intersect most sharply.

The street will not be straightforward. Biomaterials typically undergo from the notion of being costly “inexperienced premiums.” altM’s thesis is the other – that with the precise engineering, these supplies will be price-competitive and scalable. That requires not simply lab breakthroughs however strong provide chains, farmer relationships, and industrial partnerships.

To bridge the science hole, the founders introduced in Dr. Harshad Velankar as scientific lead, and have been fastidiously assembling a cross-functional staff in a rustic the place “biomaterials” remains to be an rising expertise class.

The place does this converge – in a single plant or a distributed community of amenities? How will altM navigate the lengthy gross sales cycles of legacy industries whereas sustaining startup velocity?

The complete story – together with altM’s pilot tasks, scale-up roadmap, and first industrial plant plans – is unpacked in The Indian Dream – third Version underneath the Cleantech part.