[Funding alert] Chiratae Ventures makes seed investment in tech-driven startup KBCols Sciences

Chiratae Ventures, one of the leading venture capital funds in the country, has made a seed investment in KBCols, a bioprocess tech startup.

Chiratae made the investment through its Deeptech Innovators Program and other investors who participated in this round include Axilor Ventures and Derbi Foundation.

Founded in 2018 by Vaishali Kulkarni and Arjun Singh Bajwa, KBCols Sciences is into discovery and extraction of natural colours from renewable resources for use in varied end applications including cosmetics, textiles, paints, food, pharmaceuticals, and plastics.

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According to the startup, the funding will be used for market expansion activity and in increasing the manufacturing capacity.

On the investment, Chiratae Ventures Chairman Sudhir Sethi said, “We are excited by KBCol's very unique product offering in replacing eco-friendly chemical colours. It's a unique technology with a global market.”

This DeepTech Innovators program by Chiratae Ventures is the sixth edition consolidating all the previous programs for the seed and early-stage startups with a focus on solving real, major problems through deep-technology across sectors.

The rapid surge in the use of synthetic colours over the last century has created several sustainability issues for the environment. This has created a resurgence of demand for natural colouring with shrinking usage of synthetic colours.

KBCols is working on one such alternative of exploring inexhaustible sources to produce sustainable natural colours. KBcols technology explores the rich biodiversity of the Indian subcontinent to extract/isolate new safe bio-resources from agri-industrial waste to produce stable and consistent natural colours.

KBCols Founder & CEO Vaishali Kulkarni said, “As an innovative technology-driven life sciences startup, KBCols is deeply committed to reducing the load of carcinogenic and pollution causing chemical colours across industries. Through our approach, we hope to change the landscape of dyeing in the apparel industry as well as increase the use of natural colours in other sectors.”

The global organic colour industry is expected to become a $5-10 billion market growing at 15-20 percent CAGR primarily due to strict regulations, growing awareness, increasing pollution, and improvement in the technology.