Agri Startups – Bada Business

Chennai-based space tech startup Agnikul Cosmos, which is developing India’s first private small satellite launch vehicle, became the first company in the world to successfully test a fully three dimensional (3D) rocket engine. Agnikul Cosmos has successfully test-fired its higher stage semi-cryogenic rocket engine, Agnilet.

Srinath Ravichandran, CEO and co-founder of Agnikul Cosmos, said, “This entire engine – Agnilet – is just one piece of hardware from start to finish and has zero assembled parts. We don’t think anyone in the world has ever pushed 3d printing of a rocket engine to this extent and we couldn’t be happier to have conceived, designed, realized and test-fired this engine, fully in India.”

Usually, rocket engines gave 100s of parts in them but Agnilet was designed in such a way to encapsulate all these parts into just one piece of hardware.

Meanwhile, there are other players in the race. In September last year, Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace revealed their fully 3D printer cryogenic rocket engine, Dhawan-I. The US-based startup, Firehawk Aerospace, is also close to producing a fully 3D printed rocket engine.

About AgniKul Cosmos:

AgniKul Cosmos Private Limited is a Chennai-based start-up building country’s first private satellite launch vehicle. The vehicle, Agnibaan, can carry up to 100 kilos to LEO (low earth orbit), which is nearly 700 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.

Launched in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran and Moin SPM, Agnikul was the first Indian aerospace startup to enter into a non-disclosure agreement with the Department of Space under the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe).

Raipur, January 24: In a bid to promote startups and innovators in agriculture and allied sectors in Chhattisgarh, two incubation centres have been inaugurated at the Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya (IGKV) in Raipur. The inauguration was done virtually by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Saturday. During the event, Baghel said every university in the state should establish incubation and manufacturing hubs to promote new business ideas.

Here’s how the incubation centres will help agri startups in Chhattisgarh:

The incubation centres will provide infrastructure, technology, financial and business networking assistance to budding innovators and entrepreneurs in the agri-biotechnology and agriculture sector, a public relations officer of the IGKV said.

The Chief Minister underlined the role of youth across the state ‘Gadhbo Nava Chhattisgarh’ (create a new Chhattisgarh) campaign and said all educational institutions should work towards developing entrepreneurial skills in youth. The Biotech Incubation Centre and Agri-Business Incubation and Production Centre was inaugurated to mark the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Baghel also laid the foundation stone for a new building of the biotech incubation centre, which is a part of the biotechnology park, a joint project of IGKV Raipur and state Agriculture department, he said. The project will be completed in two phases, the official said.

In the first phase, the new building of the incubation centre will be set up at a cost of Rs 30 crore in the university campus in the next two years, where 23 companies will be provided facilities for their offices and labs, he said. They will also be given technical and business networking guidance.