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We are in an interesting and difficult situation right now in the country. We are in the midst of an energy crisis. It is not just us, but most of the world is.

Asia is more affected because of gas. India seems to be managing on the crude oil side, but gas is clearly a challenge. Gas supplies to, for example, commercial use have been curtailed.

People in retail are also finding it difficult. So, there is a problem and that is because we are importing most of our fuels. Crude oil is more than 85-90 percent.

Gas is more than 50 percent for whether it is natural gas going into piped natural gas or LPG which comes from refineries. So, there is a gap between what we want to fuel our energy needs and what is available. So, tell us about where biofuels come in and where we are in India today in terms of how they are solving or about to solve some of our problems, at least.

At a very core, biofuels have probably a potential to take care of 17-20 percent of India's energy demand at the current level and significantly large percentage of these biofuels could come from agricultural residue as feedstock. So, if we are in a position to harness 100 percent of our agricultural residue feedstock, then we may be in a position to take care of around 18-20 percent of our energy needs. Unfortunately, the infrastructure required for harnessing this is just being built up.

So, I would say at the moment biofuels is an important part of industrial fuel mix, but it is not really made a dent in domestic as well as commercial applications. There is a pathway available for doing that and I, you know, my guess would be maybe around 1 percent to 2 percent of our energy demand currently driven by energy needs is fuelled by biofuels, but there is a potential to get to around 18-20 percent and the current energy crisis that we see around the world I think sets this, you know, sets probably a stage for people to start believing that this is a long term infrastructural solution of it, you know, possible for our energy.

Let us pick up a few specific examples and you talked about current output being about 1 percent of total energy needs. What would be the specific kind of biofuel and how is it being processed and pushed into or injected into our energy flow system?

So, if you look at the fuel mix, you can broadly divide them into solid, liquids and gases. Solids have been fundamentally driving the industrial usage. Coal has been a big factor in India's industrial as well as power economy.

So, replacing coal with solid biofuels is one part of the transition journey. The second is liquids, which essentially make, you know, have a big role to play in automotive fuels and aviation fuels. So, ability to create additives which can be mixed.

So, for example, ethanol has been one of those journeys where you say 20 percent of the petrol gets replaced by ethanol and you have an ability to have a mix of fossil and biofuel. So, how do you transition from an additive to 100 percent biofuel is a journey that one can have in liquid biofuels where automotive is one of the major consumers. And third is gaseous where it is both automotive and domestic and CBG would play a big role.

So, the way I see right now is that solids are at a maturity stage where applications are proven, technology is available and transition is purely a commercial decision. As far as liquids and gases are concerned, one needs to set up a much larger ecosystem both on the production side and the consumption side. You need to be in a position to make sure that your vehicles are able to use biofuels, that your burners are able to burn, you know, biogases.

So, some of these things is what we need to now conduct as a part of transition journey while we create an infrastructure which allows us to harness significantly large quantity of waste that we generate in the agricultural ecosystem. Look, for the current size of our production of food grains, we produce something like 700 million metric tonnes of agri-residue every year. And we have uses of it.

So, a large part of it has to go as fodder. But even after that you got upward of 200 million metric tonnes which, you know, is scattered around the fields. So, how do you create the first mile ecosystem for getting it collected from the farmers, storing it, densifying it?

I think the biggest enemy of biomass and solid bio-residue is distance. So, how do you create compacted biomass so that it can travel longer distances?

Brickets are one version of that.

It could be brickets, it could be bales, it could be any other form of compacting. But making that happen, you know, closer to the point of source of biomass is the infrastructure development. So, I would kind of lay the challenges in three steps.

Create infrastructure for mobilising biomass from rural areas into industrial processes. Have sufficiently large capacity of processing and biofuel manufacturing units. And then on the consumer side, have an ability to ingest that in whatever are your applications.

And so, one has to act on each one of these three sides to get to that 18% potential realisation which could be a very, very big step.

Right. And let's talk about agri-residue for a little longer. So, where is the effective conversion into or rather compacting happening?

And what are the economics that are working in favour of it? And where and why is it not working, which I am assuming is the majority of the… Right.

The compacting needs to happen at two stages. One, on the field itself. Okay, because just imagine a situation where the farmer has harvested and there is a standing stubble.

You have to make sure that the standing stubble is cut. It is organised in form of bales. So, the baling of biomass is the first stage of compacting.

So, it's like running, you know, a small factory on the field for a couple of days period. Now, is it happening? It's happening.

How could it be scaled up is the way one needs to look at it. For scaling up, you need to make investment in the aggregation machinery. And second, you need to make investment at a scale where this entire activity is finished between two crop seasons.

So, if you have Rabi and Kharif both, then, you know, the farmer is harvesting for Kharif and then getting prepared for sowing for Rabi. He has a 15 to 30 days window in which he will make that field available for you. You have to complete the activity in that period of time.

So, building infrastructure of the size, which will allow you to harness all of it, you know, make these bales on the field and store it at locations in the rural areas. That's the infrastructure. And is it happening?

It's happening. Is it happening at a very large scale? And I think that is where we are.

We are in the process of scaling up that infrastructure and big investments are required there.

How remunerative is it for farmers to do this as opposed to just chucking it away? And how remunerative is it for intermediaries to do it? And including for someone like you, I mean, since you are building the marketplace for it.

I would say, is it remunerative? The answer is yes, it can be remunerative. For whom is it remunerative?

And my answer to that would be qualified as whoever is willing to create this value. Where is the value creation? The value creation is in creating bales on the field.

That's an activity which will require investment in machinery, organising labour force and conducting and orchestrating an activity of producing bales on the field. Can a farmer do it? Of course the farmer can do it.

Can a small cooperative or a collective in village units do it? Of course they can do it. Can a small business in the rural area can do it?

Of course they can do it. Can a larger company do it through a partnership and alliance with these forces? And I think that's the way to scale.

Because each one of these smaller entities may or may not be able to make an investment just for a period of 10 days in a year. So, if one is able to create an ecosystem where there is investment in infrastructure and organisation of local efforts where value is distributed between these two, I think scale is possible. And each one of these participants will be able to gain economic value out of this entire enterprise.

This, in your experience, is working more in states like Maharashtra?

Wherever you create infrastructure, it works in all those states. So, it works in Punjab, it works in UP, it works in Maharashtra, it works in Gujarat, it works in AP. What's the challenge?

The challenge is, are you able to organise it in such an efficient and effective fashion that you are able to complete the job in 15 to 30 days period? So, this is an industrial level logistics management exercise. So, are you able to have that industrial level logistics management exercise implemented in remotest of the villages in Punjab or remotest of the villages in Maharashtra?

If you are able to do that, then it can happen everywhere. And it is happening in all the states, but in pockets. We need to make sure that it is universally happening across all districts, all talukas, all villages across the country.

And we are still talking about the solid residue, and we will come to liquid in a moment. What else is working against it? I mean, I am assuming there is some breakdown in the economics, which is not, let's say, incentivising either entrepreneurs or businesses to do this kind of collection and compacting and then distribution.

I would say lack of infrastructure is probably currently the only thing which is working against it. There is no lack of willingness.

Private or public infrastructure?

Combination of both. Look, public infrastructure may be required in creating storages. I will give you an example.

You know, like I said a minute back that distance is the largest enemy of biomass. You need to compact it. So, you need to create large scale storages in rural areas.

Are you going to be in a position to dedicate lands for these storages? Do you make it easy for sourcing and making the land available for temporary storages? No, that is the part of what I would call as public infrastructure.

And private infrastructure would essentially be, are you organised to make sure that farm by farm, village by village, you have a schedule for cleaning all farms, which gets effectively implemented in let's say 30 days time. And that's a matter of making sure that some level of industrial logistics management gets implemented in the rural areas. So, the first part is essentially around public.

The second part is essentially about a private enterprise. And I think both of them working together is what will make it happen.

And where it is working, where is the material going and who are the users for it right now?

So, the source will always be solid. The solid will either get converted back to solid, solid to solid transformation and fuel, solid to liquid transformation and solid to gaseous transformation. These are three pathways for it.

Solid to solid transformation requires very little investment because you are essentially densifying it. These are what I would call as relatively low tech industrial enterprises which are required in the rural areas. And in many places in the country, these exist.

Solid to liquid transformation and solid to gaseous transformation is a matter of significantly large investment. And what I see right now is that in many states across the country, you've got plans for CBG plants which have got approved, you've got biodiesel plants which are coming up, you've got targets of sustainable aviation fuel coming out of, solid biomass is coming up. So, technologies exist, making sure that we are able to make investments and investments in a distributed level because you can't really make biomass travel 500 kilometres and then convert it to gas.

You'll have to make it travel 50 kilometres and make it into gas. So, the size of an individual unit will be relatively smaller. But somebody who is developing it will have to, let's say, create hundreds of plants across the country.

And currently, you do have a clear pathway for this happening in India. More than 150 plants are now commissioned and almost 500 plants are in the process of getting commissioned during the course of this year. This is a compressed biogas.

Let me come back to the solid part. You said this is also a substitute for coal going forward. So, where are you seeing that being applied right now?

Two areas, one is power generation and second is industrial steam generation. Industrial steam generation would be like, if you look at everything in this room, right from paint on the walls to the fabric that we are wearing, all of it has used industrial heating in the process of making it. And that requires steam, steam requires a boiler, boiler requires a fuel, and almost every company around the country in an industrial area has a boiler.

Now, how do I replace the coal that is used there with biomass? This is one transition and this one transition has, it is relatively deeply entrenched in the industrial ecosystem right now. The second is power generation.

You know, 60% of our power generation capacity is still thermal. Government has mandated that between 5 to 20% of coal needs to be replaced by solid biomass in form of pellets. So, power generation companies are getting ready to accept mixing of coal with biomass.

And when that happens, this is right now the transition that has begun, but when that happens, we use something like, you know, around 1000 million metric tonnes of coal across the country. If 5% of it is converted to biomass, talking about 50 million metric tonnes of biomass, this 50 million metric tonnes of biomass, you know, would use one-fifth of the biomass which is available, you know, as extra biomass. See, you know, one-fifth of it has a ready end-use available.

And I see that happening over the next 3 to 5 years period. It has already started happening. It has gathered this.

And what is the target for the 5% balancing?

The target for 5% balancing is, one, handling of coal is still a relatively richer source of energy as compared to…

No, sorry, my question is, what was the government's thinking? I mean, how many years are we looking at doing this, achieving this 5%?

The government's thinking was 2027. I probably see it happening by 2030. Okay.

You were saying something about the calorific value of coal versus biomass?

Yeah. So, generally, coal is considered to be, you know, higher in calorific value, better fuel. Biomass is maybe between 70 to 80% of the calorific value of coal or the worst quality coal.

Okay. So, you need to have fuel handling systems, which are able to handle larger volumes of material. You need to be in a position to have mixing, which is done at the right point in time.

And this does require investment in infrastructure. Lot of older generation boilers are not able to handle the mix. So, you need to have some changes happening there.

So, there is a refurbishment kind of a process, which needs to be carried out across power plants in India. And thus, there is a transition time. But I would say 5 to 7% technically is possible.

And, you know, should not be a challenge.

And that includes the logistics of it. Because I know you mentioned the word several times now, which suggests the scale of the problem is also ensuring that all of this reaches the power plant, it's not too far away. And of course, the fact that it's collected and compacted at source.

So, let me build this back in terms of what kind of infrastructure would you require. 50 million metric tonnes of biomass would come from approximately 25 million acres of farmland. 25 million acres of farmland in the Indian context would have approximately 10 million farmers.

So, 10 million, you generally have 2,000 farmers across every village. So, you're essentially talking about 50,000 villages, you know, being in a position to supply this. So, you need to create an ecosystem of collection, storage, densification and supply, starting from large number of villages touching lives of more than, you know, a million farmers, being in a position to then take care of this 5 to 7%.

Now, this investment in infrastructure, if you have to compare, and I always keep on saying this, that coal took 150 years to create a supply chain which is reliable. Okay, at scale. We're wanting to create this supply chain in 3 to 5 years time.

So, the pace of investment required, the pace of changes that you have to make are going to be significantly at a much larger scale. Is it possible? Technically possible.

Is it doable from a unit economics point of view? Definitely yes. But the organisation for making it happen in a small period of time is where we need to focus on.

You said 50,000 villages. So, what would be the current number of villages approximately which are already plugged into this system?

I can give this number for our company. We touch 800 villages. Okay.

And we've taken 3 years to reach a point of touching 800 villages. And even if, you know, we have an aggressive plan of doubling the contact points every year. I mean, next year I may be touching 1500, then 3000 and then 6000.

So, for us to touch, you know, 50,000 villages, we probably will take 5 to 6 years.

Right. But there will be other companies.

There will be other companies.

Once there is a policy, sort of suction created, then companies will come up or the buyers of the fuel will also be forced to set up the supply chains for it, I'm assuming.

I would say this from a biomass perspective or energy perspective should be treated like an Amul kind of, you know, moment in India where you say, is it possible for you to have milk cooperatives? Is it possible for small farmers to participate? Is it possible to create technically robust, you know, milk producers and ice cream producers and milk product producers?

All of it is possible. Can the template be replicated and do you then require only Amul to do it? No.

I mean, I think that's the way one needs to look at it. So, there is a big potential and, you know, there are more companies should come in and there should be a larger infrastructure.

Let's talk about the fuel side now. So, the fuel side as you…

Ethanol is something now we are all familiar with because we all know now there is E20. We are all putting it into our cars and two wheelers and there have been some concerns about how it's… whether it's as fuel efficient or not.

Is it affecting the engine? So, that's a different kind… that's a different issue to come to.

But is this an area where we've achieved more compared to maybe, let's say, the solid side?

I think it has touched more lives and because, you know, from a quantum perspective number of people who started using ethanol is at a scale very large and thus we think that the impact has been much larger. But if one says that, look, NTPC has, you know, last year, you know, bought close to half a million metric tonnes of biomass. You know, and let us say that is from their 700 million metric tonnes still a small percentage.

But I think at a level of number of farmers that this has impacted I would say a very large number of farmers. So, similarly industrial biomass it is once again coming from same set of things. So, if you say touching lives of people solid biomasses are touching probably equal number of lives.

In terms of number of farmers who participate number of people who earn a little more because they are, you know, participating in this supply chain. So, I would say at this stage the effect is not visible, let's say for those of us who live in the cities. But if you get into the rural area and if you see what kind of visible impact is it causing and it is there for a lot of us to see.

But from a macro point of view from an India energy equation point of view their ethanol is obviously is much larger.

But the suppliers in that system are more institutional is what you are saying, larger farmers and Ethanol because it is right now coming from what I would call as traditional first generation sources which is sugar mills and you know, everything else which is a byproduct of sugar in that chain. The sources have been industrial. When it comes to other biofuels we are essentially talking about using waste which is farm waste.

So, thus the sources of supply are far more distributed and thus this can probably touch far many more lives as compared to what let's say the ethanol ecosystem has done on the supply side, not on the consumption side.

Right, and ethanol is really fuels for mobility and let me come to gas now and that's another area that I know you've also been talking about CBG or compressed biogas. So, tell us about where we are in the country and also acknowledging the fact that the government has made several policy pronouncements including in previous budgets.

So, government has come up with a policy which is SATAT, which essentially aims to create 5000 CBG plants across the country. Large number of licences have been granted.

And I think companies like Reliance and all have already started on that path.

And more than 150 plants out of this 5000 stated ambition have already started producing compressed biogas. Compressed biogas, you know, chemically is same as methane or natural gas that we use in our gas stations or what gets put in our gas stores through pipe natural gas. So, chemically, constitutionally it is same.

It's just that the source is different. So, thus replaceability from natural gas which is coming out of LNG that we are importing to CBG is going to be relatively easy to carry out. Most of us will not even know that we are using compressed biogas and not natural gas.

So, I would say from a transition point of view at the user end, this will be the easiest transition to achieve. It will not really require anybody to make any changes to the infrastructure or consumption side. On the producer side, it does require a significantly larger investment and that is what companies like Reliance or Indian Oil or several other companies are now making and one does see a pathway for producing through these 5000 CBG locations.

Manufacturing, let's say somebody on an average 20 metric tonnes a day, you are going to be in a position to manufacture something like 10,000 metric tonnes of biomass or 100,000 metric tonnes of biomass on a daily basis. So, this infrastructure is being created and I would say my personal view on this is this will be the largest transition that one would achieve from fossil fuels to green fuels and from India's energy security point of view and import dependence point of view, the impact that CBG will have will be probably one of the largest.

Tell us a little bit about the production process. I know you said there are 150 plants today and we are targeting 5000. This is not as distributed an infrastructure as may be the case in solid fuels or even liquid fuels.

So, how is it working so far in terms of the economics?

Let me first start by explaining the technology a bit. Not making it very complex. So, you have got, like any other digester, there is anaerobic digestion which is happening where you put biomass.

Biomasses are consisting of carbon, hydrogen and several other elements. You put it through a digester, gas gets created. Approximately 12 to 15% of the quantum of biomass that you put gets converted by mass balance into gas and that gas is what is stripped from, H2S is stripped out and CO2 is stripped out and you get 98% pure methane which replaces gas.

So, this is the process of manufacturing. It is like any other chemical manufacturing process but I think this is more of biochemical companies as opposed to chemical companies or energy companies are essentially now becoming more of bioenergy companies and not just energy companies. So, that is the process here.

The reason I explained this and I said 15% is converted to gas is because the balance 85% is converted to what is called fermented organic manure. So, it has an ability to go back to the soil and make carbon rich soil possible.

Like a fertiliser.

I would say for soil preparation, making our soil far more nutrient over a period of time, increasing its ability to hold water, fermented organic manure going back into the soil is going to be of a long term benefit. So, CVG plant coming up is actually going to be a nucleus of creating local circular economy in every area where it comes up. So, on one hand it is going to be feeding gas to use.

On the other hand, it is going to make it easier for the farmers to have higher yields and higher productivity. I wouldn't say it substitutes chemical fertilisers but it in a way complements the chemical fertilisers in a wonderful way to create a far richer farm ecosystem. So, this is what CVG has a potential to do.

From a cost economics point of view, I think currently the policy allows a particular floor for each one of the manufacturers which allows them to have I would say a reasonably good IRR on the investments that they are making. This is early stage and purely from a point of view of how would the prices behave and how would the cost behave. I am sure at some point in time the industry has to start looking at things from a point of view of how do I make it efficient like every other industrial enterprise that you create.

But currently whoever has reached a point where they are able to achieve the yields that are theoretical yields for them cost economics and unit economics is fairly okay.

So, tell us about Biofuel Circle and how you are trying to bridge some of the unbridged aspects of this ecosystem.

So, we felt that the gap in this ecosystem is not on the technology side or willingness to make investment in technology infrastructure. You will have Indian Oil Reliance or several other large oil companies willing to invest in creating large CVG plants. You would have an NTPC willing to transition from coal to…

and you have technology companies like Thermax or Praj or several such companies who have technology which will feed it.

And you worked in some of them in the past.

Yeah, I have been associated with most of them. So, though the gap is, why is it not going at the same pace at which let's say solar took off or wind took off and we felt that the gap is supply chain. It is easy to say that you have technology available and there is 235 million metric tonnes of biomass available.

But how do you make sure that it reaches you every day like a clockwork. That the quality that is delivered to you is what your digesters are able to accept. And that the prices at which it will be delivered is something which fits your long term financial viability equation.

This was clearly seen by us as a gap to be filled. And we thought we will create this business which is based on combination of two things. One is create the infrastructure.

Second is use technology to make sure participation happens. So, participation should be as easy as for coming to this studio, I called an Uber to reach my house at 9.45. And I was sure it will come at 9.45. So, there was a reliability of service, there is availability of service and that service is efficient. So, I use it.

Can a farmer call a similar cleaning service where I say 11th of November is the harvest day, 12th of November is the cleaning day, 12th and 13th November are two days that I am giving to you. I book it on my mobile app and I have on 11th or 12th of November somebody coming in, carrying out the cleaning, taking my, you know, kachra away.

And paying you for it.

And, you know, paying you for it. So, it takes care of my worries with respect to how to handle it. It essentially makes it efficient for me.

And can this be done across millions of farmers? So, this is where digitalisation should help. The second is, how do you make sure transactions happen here?

Can I have money deposited straight into his UPI account? Can I make sure that the tractor driver who is driving this, he can go to a refuelling station and get exactly the same quantity of diesel which he has used while, you know, doing these rounds. So, how do you create an infrastructure which is digital infrastructure, which is used for the purpose of orchestrating this physical movement?

This was the problem that we said we want to solve. And I think at a serious level we have solved this problem. We are now present in more than 800 villages across the country.

We have got 2 lakh farmers connected to our ecosystem. And last year we moved 7 lakh metric tonnes of biomass. Now, 7 lakh metric tonnes as compared to 235 million metric tonnes is a dot in the ocean.

But 7 lakh metric tonnes as a point to say, can it be run across 800 locations? Can it be run in a manner where people across the ecosystem are getting value for the service that they are providing? And can this business be, you know, sustained profitable business?

And I think all these 3 are ticks at the moment. So, we are now in the position to expand this and scale it to many more states. We are in 12 states right now.

And we will go to more states and more locations.

Right. And since you used the Uber example, I guess the foundation for that is that there are enough drivers and cars roaming around. And therefore, when you call at a certain time, you will get them.

And there is a certain minimum mass that has been created. What is that in your case? I mean, in terms of the machines that come and actually do the sifting, sorting and compacting and so on.

So, 2 types of machines. One is tractors. And second is purpose-built machines for the purpose of doing the baling.

Purpose-built machines are not there. And that is our investment. However, given the timing of when the biomass needs to be collected, it is always post-harvest.

So, you have got lots of idle tractor capacity available in the rural areas. Your ability to tap into this idle tractor capacity, engage it either seasonally or annually to make sure that the tractor capacity gets utilised. The tractor driver earns an income which is in addition to what he is currently earning is clearly the trigger.

And possibility of using existing infrastructure without making significantly large investment on the tractor side. Investment is required on the purpose-built machines like balers and rakers and stuff like that. That is what we bring in.

And how do they move around? So, suppose, let's say you said 800 villages. So, I am assuming these are sort of clusters.

So, let's say there was one cluster in Maharashtra, maybe close to Pune where you are based. How does it come together? And what are they doing when they are not?

That is a great question. So, what we essentially do is, I go back to the question of distance being the biggest enemy. 10 kilometres to 15 kilometres is seen as the ideal distance for the first leg of transportation.

So, we set up a depot in an area where within 10 to 15 kilometres we have an access to 2,000 farmers or 5,000 acres of farmland. So, selection of these clusters to make sure that approximately 10,000 metric tonnes of biomass can be aggregated in the season is a point of decision. So, that is the smallest unit.

We call this the biomass bank. At the biomass bank, we create, typically a biomass bank is a 10 acre open area where large bales are stored. And we have a depot which has all the machinery which is required for the crop available there.

In this area, we would engage approximately 50 tractor drivers. We require 40, we would engage 50. 10 out of these are engaged for 365 days in a year kind of engagement.

And the balance are engaged for 60 days in a year engagement. So, there is a seasonal engagement and there is an annual engagement. We onboard the 2,000 farmers through Gramme Sabhas, creating educational campaigns as to why and how could they participate.

We make sure that there is a calendar created using a WhatsApp chat bot to make sure that they have a clear schedule available. This is, I would say, a pre-season work which is completed. Come the season, every evening, the tractor driver would know what are his rides for tomorrow, where does he go, pick up the machine, which farmer does he go to, what work does he do, where does he deliver.

So, all the schedule is available to him on his mobile phone. The farmer knows what is going to happen, once again, on his mobile phone. At the end of the day when the job is done, you would have payment for your services coming into your mobile phone.

And this is done in the cluster of 10 villages which could be having 2,000 farmers. And this is what we run for 45 to 60 days in a year. Once the season is over, then delivery is from there start.

And the 10 odd tractor drivers were engaged with us for the entire one year period. They are having daily loads to deliver to our customers in the area. And our customers in the area could be a CBG plant, could be a briquetting plant, but our assurance to them is you will get daily supplies, you will get good quality supplies.

So, purely from a point of view of their reliability of commitment to their customers, this feedstock supply is ensured, quality is ensured, and timing of delivery is ensured. I mean that's how the ecosystem works.

And you are saying that, illustratively also that in one area or one cluster, you would be feeding all these requirements like solid, liquid and gas? Or maybe two of three?

Theoretically, yes, but generally solids and gas because that is where most of the infrastructure is right now.

And liquid is more sort of sugarcane, for example, and plugged into a slightly different distillery ecosystem. Absolutely right.

Right. So, last question. So, what made you think of this venture?

I know you have sort of been connected with this world from your work in Thermax or Raj Industries, but what made you think of this?

Well, you know, between 1999-2000 and 2006, I ran business of an American software product company called Triple Point Technology. Triple Point Technology had software products for energy trading and risk management. Most of our customers were people in oil and gas industry, electricity industry.

They used our software for the purpose of managing their physical and derivatives positions. I think that six-year period allowed me a very good insight into how the energy industry works, why investments happen in oil assets, you know, how does oil storage asset, you know, why does, let's say, somebody like Morgan Stanley have oil storage assets around the world. You know, some of these things which, you know, externally you don't really see, I think I could see in close quarters.

When the question of why does bioenergy supply chain not work came as a question, I think for me the immediate answer was, well, there is no infrastructure. I mean, is anybody incentivised to create storage? Is anybody incentivised to create, to look at it from a long-term point of view?

So, ecosystem or a marketplace was absent. And start of COVID, I, you know, look, you have, all of us have lots of ideas about what can be done in the world. I always felt that I would like to at some point in time start a business which is focused on core infrastructure or core business, but where technology makes, you know, provides an edge.

And digital technology provides an edge. And I always felt it is going to be supply chain of a traditional, you know, brick and mortar company or brick and mortar industry. And I discussed this early days of COVID with my friend Ashwin, with whom I used to work in TriplePoint.

And we said, why don't we make a few PowerPoint presentations on what is possible and what can be done and make it to people who are, who's who in bioenergy segment. So we used our early days in COVID probably a little more creatively to say that look, there is a way to solve the problem. And the way to solve the problem is create infrastructure and create a technology driven platform.

I think the friends to whom we made these presentations, they liked it and they were willing to, you know, not just encourage us, but to be our customers or to be our investors. And I think that allowed us to take a leap.