NovorbisItus is a cleantech startup headquartered in Pune and has been able to raise ₹13.35 crore in a seed round. Rainmatter, the investment initiative of Zerodha, led the investment round, with considerable involvement of Rockstud Capital, a fund that is known to invest in manufacturing-based and sustainability-oriented businesses. This capital infusion is a turning point for the startup, which already found a niche in developing innovative, indigenous solutions to fight air pollution at its source, i.e. specifically by targeting decentralised sources of pollution such as diesel generator (DG) sets and crematoriums.

Journey of Novorbisltus

The success of NovorbisItus is a tribute to grassroots engineering. The venture was founded by Harsh Neekhra, Gagan Tripathi, and Divyank Gupta, whose roots can be traced back to their college days in Indore. What started as an idealistic venture, a project to remedy air pollution at the source, has become a commercially viable technology that can be deployed in industrial and commercial customers throughout India today.

The team has since launched commercial sales in 2022 and is currently involved in scaling. As the focal point of R&D, manufacturing, as well as distribution, Pune has demonstrated that engineering-based solutions to the problems that are customized to reflect the Indian environment can be more effective than generic international alternatives, which simply do not adjust to the realities of their location and market.

Dual-focus prodcut portfolio and investors’ participation

The core component of NovorbisItus success lies in its dual-focus product portfolio, developed to tackle two different, yet equally important, sources of urban pollution. India has a population of diesel generator (DG) sets amounting to 20 lakh. They are infamous sources of particulate matter (PM) emissions in high-density urban centres such as Delhi-NCR and Mumbai. 

NovorbisItus also provides an ARAI-certified, filter-less Retrofit Emission Control Device (RECD) that could be retrofitted into existing DG sets. The device enables operators to meet strict CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) emissions limits such as the most recent, CPCB IV+ standards, by integrating electrostatic precipitation with an automated cleaning system, rather than the financially discouraging cost of installing full sets of equipment.

One of the most unusual things about the mission of the startup is, perhaps, its orientation on the ecological footprint of traditional rituals. India has an annual contribution of about eight million tonnes of carbon emission by ritualistic last rites. Certified by IIT Bombay, the Crematorium Air Purification System (CAPS) technology of the startup is able to reduce air pollution by 90-95%, providing a feasible means of making traditional practices greener without offending cultural sensibilities.

Rainmatter and Rockstud Capital involvement highlights the increasing investor interest in climate-oriented hardware startups in India. Abhinav Negi, Investment Lead (Climate and Deep-tech) at Rainmatter, explained why the company decided to support the startup: “At Rainmatter, we seek urgent, undeniable, and underserved problems. DG has plagued both with an Indian-condition tech. Novorbis is solving.

Founder and Managing Partner at Rockstud Capital, Abhishek Agrawal highlighted the structural need of these solutions. With the growing pressure on companies to meet the quality of the air they produce, retrofit options such as NovorbisItus has become a must-have infrastructure investment in the industrial and commercial sectors.

Conclusion

NovorbisItus is well placed to expand its growth path with the new capital. The startup will also scale the use of its existing solutions and at the same time increase its product lineup. The future goals involve dealing with emissions in industrial boilers and major industrial plants like steel plants. The investment will help the business to empower industries with on-site carbon capture technology, which is a significant move to manufacture businesses that seek to achieve net-zero objectives.