Bangalore, 28 August 2020:
Fresh out of the Biotechnology Entrepreneurship Student Teams (BEST) of ABLE, KBCols was founded in 2018 by Dr Vaishali Kulkarni in Pune as a technology driven venture in the space of natural colours. The company has been extracting multiple colours from renewable and sustainable sources with an environment-friendly extraction process.

KBCols has announced that it is receiving Seed Funding. LegaLogic advised KBcols Sciences on Seed Funding from Chiratae Ventures, Axilor Technology Fund and Dayananda Sagar EntrepreneurshipResearch & Business Incubation (“DERBI”) Foundation.

This is the 6th edition of the DeepTech Innovators program by Chiratae Ventures consolidating all the previous programmes for the seed and early-stage start-ups. This cohort saw participation from more than 250+ companies across various tech space.

Announcing the selection, Mr Sudhir Sethi, founder and chairman, Chiratae Ventures, said, “We are excited by KBCols very unique product offering in replacing eco-friendly chemical colors.  Unique unique technology with a global market”.

Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Vaishali Kulkarni, founder and chief executive officer KBCols, said “As an early-stage startup we’re thrilled by the faith and excitement shown to us by incredible partners such as Chiratae, Axilor and Derbi. As an innovative technology-driven lifesciences startup, KBCols is deeply committed to reducing the load of carcinogenic and pollution causing chemical colors across industries. Through our approach, we hope to change the landscape of dyeing in the apparel industry as well as increase the use of natural colors in sectors such as beauty, foods, consumer lifestyle products and many other high-value product verticals. We envision ushering back the era of use natural colors and we now work towards coloring the whole world in a completely different but safer way.”

Dr Vaishali added, “As an elucidation of the positive impact on the environment, consider KBCols use case in the apparel industry. Today the textile industry alone causes 17% of freshwater pollution. The use of KBCols colours & technology in dyeing not only reduces the need for hazardous chemicals significantly but also the usage of water by 1/5th in the dyeing process.”

Launched in 2006, Chiratae Ventures India Advisors (formerly IDG Ventures India) has notable portfolio companies under its belt which include Bounce, Curefit, FirstCry, Flipkart, among others.

The investment by Chiratae Ventures was done as part of its DeepTech Innovators Program