Program Overview
68.7 million tonnes accounting for nearly 40% of food produced in India is lost across the post-harvest value chain before it reaches the markets, thus leading to decrease in nutritional security and income losses for farmers. Inappropriate disposal of food waste causes environmental deterioration through increase in GHG emissions, water and air pollution. Existing post-harvest management practices are fragmented, inefficient and inaccessible to small and marginal farmers.
Techtonic – Innovations towards Zero Food Waste (ZFW), a program supported by DBS Bank and powered by Social Alpha aims to support sustainable technologies and solutions along the food value chain to drive positive environmental, livelihood and economic impact.
CALLING FOR APPLICATIONS
We invite entrepreneurs working on science and technology solutions that are ready for deployment and have the potential to create positive impact, scale across geographies and demonstrate business model sustainability to apply to the Techtonic.
Upto 5 start-ups will receive grants and a wide range of technology and business support through Social Alpha’s venture acceleration model.
FOCUS AREAS
Techtonic – Innovations towards Zero Food Waste invites solutions to solve the following challenges along the agriculture and food value chain:
Affordable, small-scale and innovative solutions near farmgate, solving for:
- Loss due to conventional non-mechanized threshing, cleaning, and/ or winnowing techniques;
- Improper handling of the produce;
- Perishability due to ineffective drying and moisture management practices.
Cost-effective, highly efficient, modular, and multi-crop solutions solving for:
- Inaccessibility and inadequacy of existing storage infrastructure;
- Absence of decentralized storage infrastructure near farmgate;
- Absence of humidity, temperature control, real-time monitoring & quality control mechanisms in existing infrastructure;
- High capital expenditure and operational costs of cold storage systems coupled with lack of affordable access to finance
- Lack of affordable pre-cooling services near farmgate.
Affordable and efficient solutions solving for:
- Absence of aggregation and pick up solutions for first mile transport and distribution services from farmgate;
- Lack of cold transportation solutions and contamination of fresh produce due to heat & humidity.
Easy-to-use, small-scale, efficient, multi-functional, end-to-end processing and value add solutions solving for:
- Lack of access to mechanized primary processing solutions near farmgate;
- High capital expenditure and operational costs of food processing and value add technologies, coupled with lack of access to finance.
Tech-driven solutions solving for:
- Lack of access to organized and consistent markets, causing small and marginal farmers to sell their produce at lower rates;
- Inability of farmers to make data-backed decisions due to unavailability of real-time market price and demand supply information
Affordable bio-tech innovations solving for:
- High perishability of fresh produce across the food value chain due to early ripening, microbial growth and pest-attacks;
- Inefficient packaging, reducing the quality and shelf-life of fresh produce.
Innovative technologies solving for:
- Lack of optimum utilization of agriculture waste generated at the farmgate, and food waste generated at APMC’s, modern retailers and HORECA establishments;
- Limited discoverability of food waste generated at APMCs and HORECA establishments for collection and value generation
Who can Apply
The program is targeting innovations at an advanced stage of product development where in:
- Prototype exists and at least one pilot has been carried out or proof of concept has been physically demonstrated in real world conditions/on the ground/outside the lab with positive results
- Pre-commercial/fully functional lab prototype with some testing and feedback from users exists
- The product is ready and is already in the market and can be scaled
Ideal applications would be in TRL 7 to fully commercialized stage; in-revenue start-ups are also encouraged to apply.
Program Offerings
Up to 5 winners will receive
Access to Grants – Each start-up will receive a grant of INR 44L
a. Opportunity to pitch for seed capital (equity) up to 1Cr per start-up to Social Alpha
b. Access to Social Alpha’s large and diverse investor and donor network
Access to Social Alpha’s strong implementation/grassroots partner and program network
Assist with developing go-to-market strategy and overall business advisory for 1 year
Access to grants and our network of experts
Assistance with product development, designing, rapid prototyping and design for manufacturing
Curated set of capacity building and knowledge sessions by qualified global and local experts
Access to DBS Bank’s wide range of global and local partners
TIMELINE
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Launch of the Challenge Applications open
29th March 2022
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Last date to submit applications
20th May 2022
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Virtual interviews and Due Diligence rounds
May 2022
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Grand Jury
Announcement of winnersJune 2022
