Kishan Karunakaran says that his entry into the biofuels space was purely coincidental. In 2007-08, cultivation of a crop called Jatropha curcas was becoming famous in India for production of biodiesels, advocated even by former President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. The grandson of a farmer, Kishan decided to cultivate the crop. The idea was to sell it to biofuel manufacturers, but there was no demand. They decided to get into manufacturing themselves. “I set up one of India’s earliest commercial scale biodiesel plant, and ran my own manufacturing unit till 2014," he says. They had to soon shut shop for various reasons: They realised that the crop Jatropha curcas was not a viable option for biofuels, and both demand and supply was extremely fragmented. “Clients were big but the supply was small," he says.
In 2018, the Indian government launched the National Policy of Biofuels to reduce India’s dependence on imports and improve local manufacturing of biofuels. This time around, Kishan, along with friends Venkat Selvan, Sumanth Kumar and Prasad P Nair, decided to plug the gaps across the value chain using technology and a mobile platform. “We wanted the platform to help fragmented suppliers of waste [that can be used as raw materials for biofuels] to connect with biofuel manufacturers easily, and also supply these biofuels to large fuel consumers," says Kishan. They launched Buyofuel in 2020, which they call India’s first B2B marketplace for buying and selling both biofuels and raw materials to make biofuels.
First Published: Aug 21, 2023, 11:20
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There are three main stakeholders that Buyofuel seeks to connect: First, suppliers of waste like used cooking oil, tyre/rubber waste, agro waste, wet organic waste, saw dust and plastic waste that can be used as raw materials to make biofuels. Second, manufacturers of solid, liquid and gaseous biofuel. Third, end consumers like factories or industries that can replace their petrol, diesel and coal requirements with bio-alternatives.