u/wryes

These very textiles even helped financially secure what later became Yale University.

Yet, the world rarely credits the hands that created them.

From everyday fabric to global luxury, this is the untold story of Madras checks - and the Indian artisans behind them.

Comment “Made In India” - because Indian weavers deserve the credit.

What makes this even more shocking is that a single pair of sneakers can take more than 200 years to decompose in a landfill.

This problem inspired two marathon runners, Shriyans Bhandari and Ramesh Dhami Bohara, to build Greensole Foundation in 2015.

The idea came from a simple moment. Shriyans once saw Ramesh trying to repair his torn running shoes instead of throwing them away.

The upper part of the shoes was still usable, but the soles had worn out. Curious about the bigger issue, Shriyans researched footwear waste and discovered the massive environmental damage caused by discarded shoes.

That small observation eventually grew into a social enterprise that now upcycles old footwear into comfortable slippers for children in need.

“By refurbishing old soles and adding new materials, we have distributed over a million pairs of footwear across 20 states. Our work not only protects feets, but also creates employment opportunities and prevents tons of CO2 emissions, proving that the journey towards a cleaner planet can begin with a single recycled step,” Shriyans Bhandari tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

The journey was far from easy. Neither founder came from a footwear manufacturing background. In the early days, they worked from a small unit in Mumbai and could produce only 15 to 20 pairs a day by hand.

Standardising waste footwear was one of their biggest challenges because every discarded shoe was different.

After years of trial and error, they developed a process where old soles are separated, resized using die-cutting technology, and combined with new hygienic materials to create durable footwear for children.

Today, Greensole collects nearly 15,000 to 20,000 pairs of discarded shoes every month through donation drives, schools, corporates, and collection centres.

The organisation has already distributed more than 1.2 million pairs across nearly 20 Indian states, especially in remote rural and tribal regions.

What makes their work even more impactful is that they are not just helping children. They are also reducing landfill waste, preventing carbon emissions, creating employment opportunities, and recycling unusable footwear into granules for industries like furniture and automotive manufacturing.

Alongside the foundation, their retail arm also sells sustainable footwear and lifestyle products, helping the venture remain financially sustainable.

From a simple attempt to repair a torn shoe to building one of India’s most inspiring circular economy ventures, Greensole shows how small observations can lead to meaningful change.

This is surprising because around 88% of companies say they are actively hiring, showing a clear gap between available jobs and the graduates who are actually getting hired.

One of the biggest reasons behind this crisis is the skill mismatch between graduates and industry requirements. Many students graduate with theoretical knowledge but lack practical skills, internships, or real-world experience that employers expect. Experts also point out that many companies are reluctant to spend time and resources training fresh graduates, making it harder for them to enter the workforce.

Placement, job opportunities crisis, graduates india mba engineers companies college

After spending 16 years at sea, sailing across global routes and rising to become a captain at just 31, Capt. Saurabh Saraswat decided to shift his focus from maritime safety to human safety on land.

Born and raised in Lucknow, Saurabh joined the Shipping Corporation of India at 18, choosing a non-traditional path over college.

Over the years, he worked on oil tankers transporting crude and petroleum, where one principle remained constant: life always comes first.

“At sea, safety starts with life. Everything else comes later,” he shared.

Even after reaching the top, he found himself questioning what came next.

After moving ashore into leadership roles like Marine Superintendent, DPA, and CSO, he eventually started his own venture, Beaufort Marine Services, in 2017, a maritime consultancy that continues to operate globally.

But the idea for his next venture came from a deeply personal moment.

In 2024, during a conversation with his wife about dementia patients going missing, a question sparked a new direction:

“Can we build something that helps identify people when they can’t identify themselves?”

That question led to VerifyU.

VerifyU is a facial recognition-based identity and safety app designed for emergencies. It stores key details like blood group, medical history, allergies, and emergency contacts.

In critical situations, anyone can scan a person’s face to instantly access essential information, helping doctors act faster and families get informed sooner.

“My vision is simple if every Indian registers, identifying someone in an emergency becomes instant,” Captain Saurabh said.

The app also includes:

- SOS alerts that notify contacts and nearby users within 5 km

- Plans for community blood donor matching

- Encrypted data storage on AWS with OTP-based access controls

Currently, VerifyU has crossed 1,000+ registrations and is focusing on Lucknow as its first market, with a goal of reaching 1 lakh users before expanding.

The platform follows a freemium model and is fully bootstrapped, funded through his existing business.

For Captain Saurabh, this is more than a startup.

“In India, the value of life often depends on who you are. We want to change that,” Captain Saurabh told Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

That’s what siblings Nikki and Rashmi Jha from Bihar saw around them.
So they built a fridge-like storage box, Sabjikothi -- a low-cost storage device that can keep fruits and vegetables fresh for up to 30 days.

To put that into perspective:
• It consumes nearly the same power as charging a mobile phone
• Has almost 10x the storage capacity of a household refrigerator
• Costs nearly half as much as conventional refrigeration systems
• Helps delay ripening by controlling ethylene gas released by produce

They didn’t build an app to “disrupt” farming.
They solved an actual problem.

Ravi, who skipped campus placements to build his clean-air startup AiRTH, believes IIT Bombay creates an environment where students are encouraged to experiment, take risks, and even fail without fear of judgment.

“In terms of infrastructure, IIT Bombay may be only 2x or 3x ahead of other colleges. But in terms of mindset, the difference is 100x. People there are comfortable with failure. They are willing to explore, try different things, and see what works. That mindset is what makes many of them pioneers,” Ravi Kaushik tells Jameel Akhter, Startup Pedia co-founder and podcast host.

One of the biggest reasons behind this culture is the institute’s support system. Through deferred placements, students can spend a year building startups or exploring unconventional paths while still having the option to return for placements later.

According to Ravi, this changes the entire thought process from “What if I fail?” to “What if this actually works?”

But choosing entrepreneurship over placements was not easy. Coming from a middle-class family, Ravi faced resistance from parents and even concerns from his then-girlfriend, now wife.

Still, the confidence of having a strong network and a fallback career option gave him the courage to take the leap.

Today, Ravi is building AiRTH, a clean-tech startup that converts regular air conditioners into affordable air purifiers using patented retrofit technology.

Backed by IIT Bombay and featured on Shark Tank India, the startup is making clean indoor air more accessible and affordable for Indian households.

To understand how hyperlocal logistics actually works on the ground.

For nearly six months, he travelled more than 35,000 km delivering orders, interacting with customers, pharmacies, and riders while observing the gaps in last-mile delivery.

What makes the story even more interesting is that alongside doing deliveries, he was also attending 90+ startup events and tech meetups to learn how businesses are built and scaled.

That combination of street-level experience and startup exposure eventually inspired him to launch "MOM Pharmacy" short for Medicine On Minutes a startup focused on delivering medicines within 10 minutes.

Speaking about entrepreneurship with Shradhha Sharma, Pardha shared that early-stage founders should focus more on learning, problem-solving, and long-term vision rather than chasing quick money.

His journey is a reminder that sometimes the best startup ideas don’t come from pitch decks they come from experiencing problems firsthand.

“None of these things really took off,” Tarun Gupta tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Ultimately, he started helping his father in the family-run poultry business.

One day, during a hotel breakfast, Tarun ordered eggs and was extremely put off by the foul smell and taste.

“One thing was very clear: there was a massive inconsistency in quality in the poultry industry,” he says.

On deeper research, Tarun Gupta found that in India, there is no clarity on antibiotic usage, carcinogenic residues, lay date, hygiene standards, and feed quality.

In 2014, he decided to establish Henfruit as a mass-premium, reliable food brand that addressed the above gaps honestly, transparently, and scientifically.

To begin Henfruit, he borrowed Rs 5 lakh from his father (which has now been paid off with interest, he says).

Tarun and his team of three people started the egg production and supply brand in a 400 sq. ft. storeroom. He began learning from global poultry practices, travelled internationally to study poultry farms and gained firsthand knowledge of antibiotic-free production.

Today, Henfruit claims to not just sell eggs, but peace of mind as well.

It offers the following products – Farm White Eggs (with 6 grams of protein), Protein Max Eggs (with 7 grams of protein and lower calories), Brown Eggs, and Jumbo Eggs.

The core promise is pretty straightforward: eggs that are free of antibiotics, germs, and uncertainty.

Every egg at Henfruit is cleaned immediately (washed, UV-sanitized, and sorted) post-laying, eliminating shell bacteria.

Henfruit employs a three-layer antibiotic control mechanism. Every partner farm is supervised by an experienced veterinarian. After arriving at the central processing plant, each batch of eggs is tested in the brand's in-house lab.

Tarun Gupta affirmed that to remove even a slight possibility of antibiotic infiltration, Henfruit conducts monthly NABL-accredited lab checks. These are used to independently verify the results of the in-house lab.

The brand has EggTrack™, a proprietary traceability software. Every egg’s journey, from the farm to the consumer, is recorded using this system.

Additionally, Tarun’s personal phone number is printed on each pack of eggs. Customers can directly speak to him, and complaints are processed and responded to within 24 hours.

To date, the functional protein brand has served more than 20 million customers.

While in FY25, Henfruit clocked Rs136.8 crore in annual revenue, the number jumped to Rs 210 crore in FY26. For FY27, the brand is eyeing Rs 400 crore.

This is exactly the gap a group of Delhi-based techies set out to solve with their AI platform, kiia.ai. Built from a personal learning struggle, the platform focuses on turning complex concepts into simple visual explanations that can be understood in seconds.

The idea came when the founders Ankit Jha and Sahil Khan realised that no matter how much they read, concepts only became clear once they could visualise them.

What makes Kiia stand out is its speed. While most AI video tools can take over 20 minutes to generate an explanation, Kiia delivers visual explanations in just around 20–30 seconds.

Instead of creating heavy pre-rendered videos, the team built their own system that generates and renders visuals in real-time, making the process significantly faster and more efficient.

The trial was conducted at an altitude of around 16,400 feet, where low oxygen levels, freezing temperatures, and strong winds make drone operations highly challenging.

The company shared, “The Task was very critical as high wind speed, low temperature and Higher altitude was making it difficult to perform operations. We deliver the desired specifications with our design, it was very hard to set PID's for this model.”

The successful test is a major step for the startup as it looks to build indigenous drones for logistics, surveillance, and defence applications in difficult terrains.

Founded in 2023, Bajrang UAV is led by founder and managing director Umang Joshi.

The company focuses on developing UAV systems for military, industrial, and surveillance purposes.

Over the past two years, it has worked on drones designed for high-altitude operations, thermal imaging, payload delivery, and tactical reconnaissance.

The PX4P2300 is part of the company’s heavy-payload drone category and is designed for logistics support in remote areas.

A drone capable of lifting 30 kg at high altitude can be useful for transporting supplies such as medicines, food packets, communication equipment, ammunition, and emergency materials to remote border posts and mountainous regions where traditional transportation remains difficult.

India’s drone sector has seen rapid growth in recent years, especially after the government increased its focus on domestic drone manufacturing under the “Make in India” initiative.

India’s capital markets ecosystem.

Nearly a decade later, it has evolved into a significant platform backing over 160 startups across fintech, climate, healthcare, media, and deep tech.

According to Kamath, the initiative has deployed more than ₹1,500 crore so far and continues to grow as part of Zerodha’s broader commitment to reinvestment.

He revealed that 10% of Zerodha’s earnings are allocated towards startup investments, with another 10% directed towards social impact through Rainmatter.

What sets Rainmatter apart is its non-traditional VC approach. The firm does not take board seats and avoids pushing founders toward short-term financial outcomes. Instead, it focuses on giving founders the flexibility to build sustainable businesses without external pressure.

Kamath also highlighted a key concern with traditional venture capital its emphasis on rapid returns, which often leads to shortcuts that may ultimately harm consumers.

After spending over a decade on air with Radio Mirchi and Red FM, hosting shows, meeting celebrities, and building a strong listener base, he chose to leave it all behind.

The decision was not driven by burnout or failure, but by something far more human: the need to be present for his family.

When his father’s health declined, Anand returned home. What he found waiting was his father’s modest 40-year-old juice stall.

At first, it felt like a step backwards. Going from a known radio voice to standing behind a small counter cutting fruits was not easy to accept. But over time, that space became the foundation of something new.

In 2018, he started Eat Raja with almost no investment, using old equipment and simple resources. What began as a necessity slowly evolved into a purpose-driven venture. Instead of just selling juices, Anand focused on building an experience rooted in sustainability.

"I don't sell juices, I sell a concept. Our shop is almost like a tourist place. People come here, they pedal a cycle to make their own juice. They get a different high altogether," Anand tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Today, Eat Raja stands out for its zero-waste approach. Juices are served in natural fruit shells, plastic is completely avoided, and even the customer experience is designed differently.

People can pedal a cycle to power the blender and make their own drink, turning a routine purchase into something memorable.

The journey, however, was far from smooth. In the early days, daily sales were as low as a few hundred rupees, sometimes even dropping to just 50.

Momentum picked up when the concept went viral online in 2020, bringing in large catering opportunities and new customers. But the pandemic soon disrupted operations, followed by the personal loss of his mother. At one point, Anand considered shutting everything down.

Instead, he chose to rebuild. Step by step, with returning customers and word of mouth, the business recovered. By 2022, it was doing steady daily sales and had built a loyal community around its idea.

Today, Eat Raja operates multiple outlets and works with corporate clients and events, while staying committed to its core philosophy. The focus is not on rapid expansion, but on maintaining quality and growing thoughtfully.

Eat Raja has reportedly achieved an annual revenue of around Rs 90 lakh per year.