Chennai-based Proklean Technologies raises Rs 3.5 cr funding from Infuse Ventures
Chennai-based probiotic chemicals company Proklean Technologies Private Limited has raised Rs 3.5 crore from IIMA CIIE’s sustainability and cleantech fund Infuse Ventures.
Proklean manufactures completely natural products of probiotic origin, which can replace or reduce the use of currently used chemicals in various industrial and commercial applications like leather processing, textile processing and household cleaning. All products are sold under the brand name ‘Proviera’. The company had earlier raised an angel round from Chennai Angels, few of their IIMA batchmates and SCD Probiotics, USA.
Proklean and probiiotic technology
Proklean uses a unique probiotic technology which makes the products 100% bio-degradable, natural and non-toxic. Founded by Dr. Sivaram Pillai, B. Chandrasekhar and Vishwadeep Kuila, the company has already developed a suite of products for customers in the textile and leather processing industries with marquee names in India like Vardhaman Group and Raymond. Internationally, Proklean has customers in U.S.A., Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Turkey, Thailand, China, Philippines, Australia and Bangladesh.
Sivaram was heading the bio-products business at the Murugappa Group, India, prior to founding Proklean. He says,
What differentiates our technology from most green technologies is that we do not require any subsidy, either from the government or the customer. In fact, our products are cost and performance competitive compared to traditional chemical productsin every application that we serve. Our products save water, processing time and in some cases even energy. This is besides being completely biodegradable.
Also read: How Ahmedabad-based Ecolibrium is helping companies cut energy costs
Why did Infuse Ventures invest?
Kunal Upadhyay, CEO, Infuse Ventures believes that Proklean’s range of products address the environmental concerns from industrial effluents which are on the rise.
IIMA-CIIE’s fund Infuse has been investing actively in the cleantech sector and its investments include energy-management startupEcolibrium Energy, thermal-energy storage startup Tessol, renewable energy services startupREConnect, solar-pumping startupSuryaPowerMagic and geothermal HVAC provider GIBSS, among others. The fund is backed by Government of India(Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Technology Development Board, IFC, BP, SIDBI, Godrej Industries, ICICI Bank, Bank of India and Union Bank.