Leading Cold Chain Solution Provider, TESSOL Raises INR 7.5 Cr from Mela Ventures

Existing Investors, 1crowdAngels and 1Fund, will also participate in this round and top up the current investment

Funds to be utilized to enhance R&D, geography expansion and capacity building

TESSOL, a globally recognised Indian Cold Chain Solution provider that aims to solve the last-mile distribution problem, has raised INR 7.5 crore from Mela Ventures. Existing Investors, 1crowdAngels and 1Fund, will also participate in this round.

The funds raised will be utilised in geographical expansion, capacity building, team building, new products, and application development. The journey of the Mumbai-based start-up is intriguing as they pivoted the greatest pain point, which was the unfeasibility and unreliability of the last mile Cold Chain in India, into a great opportunity for themselves and associated partners.

The company has emerged as the trusted solution provider for leading e-commerce and quick commerce brands, helping them effectively and efficiently move perishable products in the mid and last mile. It’s also strategizing consciously to ensure its solutions are environmentally friendly, thereby reducing carbon footprint and greenhouse emissions.

Commenting on raising funds, Rajat Gupta, Founder & CEO, TESSOL, said, “The Pandemic has led to a sudden increase in the demand for Food and Pharmaceutical last-mile cold chain globally. Having proven our position as a market leader in India, this is the most opportune time to invest in scaling our solutions globally and planning our foray into new application areas. We shall be investing in further enhancing our internal R&D and application engineering capabilities and building the foundation to be a global category leader in this space."

Further adding, Niranjana Neelakantan, Co-Founder & COO, said, “We are thrilled that The Mela has begun for us too! The funds have come in at a very opportune time when the market is showing great promise and excitement for our solutions. The funds would be utilised for capacity expansion and team building. We will soon be onboarding some of the best minds who will help us scale and expand into international markets as well. As budding entrepreneurs, we are also very excited to partner with uber-successful entrepreneurs like Krishnakumar Natarajan and Parthasarathy N.S. We aim to leverage their experience and expertise to take TESSOL to its next level of growth."

Currently, Rajat Gupta and 1crowd are on TESSOL Board. As a part of the process, Mela Ventures will also get on the TESSOL Board soon.

Commenting on investing in one of the largest Cold Chains in India, Krishnakumar Natarajan, Managing Partner, Mela Ventures, said, “Driving environment sustainability is becoming a key priority for societies globally. Current Cold Chain Logistics Solutions, which contribute to GHG emissions, need a huge technology transformation that protects the product quality, saves costs and importantly, delivers sustainability. TESSOL’s range of products, backed by years of research, is leading that transformation. Their solutions have delivered proven results to over 100 customers across the cold chain, including the fast-growing last-mile segment players. TESSOL displays all the characteristics of a global category leader, and we are excited to be partnering with Rajat and Niranjana as they take the organisation to the next level.”

Vidhi Vijayvargiya, Partner, 1crowd, said, “Over the years, TESSOL has pioneered innovation in the cold chain logistics space, with new products that help their clients tackle real-world challenges, increasing efficiency and reducing costs and delighting end consumers. Their end-to-end PCM-based thermal battery solutions with the overarching IoT-based remote monitoring systems open up the vast pharma opportunity and international markets, both of which are immediate priorities for the company. We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Rajat & Niranjana as they envision taking TESSOL to new heights.”

The leading Cold Chain provider has emerged as a market leader in India’s last mile Cold Chain solutions sector. Taking sustainable growth and development into account, it is also further revolutionising the business with its flagship product such as IndiwrapTM The company offers a wide range of solutions for the pharmaceutical, chilled and frozen foods sector.

CleanTech-led Logistics Startup Tessol Raises Follow-on Funding from 1Crowd, Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital

Tessol, a Mumbai-based startup in the CleanTech-led cold chain logistics space, has recently raised an undisclosed amount in follow-on equity funding from early stage venture capital firm 1Crowd, and existing investors Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital.

Founded in 2013 by IIT Delhi – Harvard alumnus Rajat Gupta, Tessol (Thermal Energy Service Solutions Private Limited) aims to revolutionize the cold chain distribution in India using its proprietary "Energy Storage" technology based solutions. These products and solutions, while being environmentally sustainable, reduce the lifetime cost of cooling by more than 50% therefore making cold chain on low value products viable. Over the last few years, TESSOL has developed solutions ranging from farm level collection to home delivery and works with the largest FMCG, food processing and e-commerce players in India. Funds raised in this round would be utilized by TESSOL for strengthening the current product suite and bringing some disruptive products that were under development to pilot and commercialization.

It may be recalled that, last year in May, the startup was among the 6 winners of the Startup Energy Transition Awards organised by the Deutsche Energie–Agentur, the German Energy Agency (dena) for recognizing innovative business ideas in clean tech and energy transition area from across the world.

“There are huge gaps in the Indian food supply chain and while there are several cold chain products available in the market, there is a dearth of viable solutions. At TESSOL, we believe in partnering with our customers and working out system level solutions that can drastically impact costs while improving the performance,” said Rajat Gupta, CEO of Tessol, who has several years of past industry experience.

“We see Tessol occupy a sweet spot at the intersection of India’s underserved cold chain architecture and a vacuum in environmentally-friendly clean energy solutions. Tessol’s farm-to-fork product range serves myriad use cases, application segments and customer profiles, and the breadth and depth of their client roster bears ample testimony to the efficacy of their innovation-driven offerings,” said Anil Gudibande, co-founder of 1Crowd.

“Tessol is one of the very few innovation-driven cold chain product companies. With their superior energy-efficient technology, already adopted by many marquee clients across industries, the company is well-positioned to service the growing demand for cold chain infrastructure,” said Amber Maheshwari, Vice PresidentatInfuse Ventures.

“We are excited about the rapid growth in TESSOL’s range of cost efficient, high performance cold-chain solutions, which is bringing in new, quality-conscious customers across end-user segments. We believe TESSOL’s technology can, over the longer-term, aid significant reduction in losses in the agri/food chain from the current high levels,” said Krishnan Neelakantan, Senior Directorat Ankur Capital.

In April, 1Crowd led $650K investment of an another logistics segment startup, Mojro, a Bengaluru-based smart urban logistics platform, which offers a machine learning driven intra-city logistic planning and optimization.

Earlier this month, 1Crowd, along with government’s BIRAC, has invested undisclosed amount in Pune-based healthcare startup SynThera Biomedical Private Limited, which focuses on R&D, manufacture and commercialization of affordable biomaterials-based medical devices.

[Top Image Via - dena.de]

CleanTech-led Logistics Startup Tessol Raises Follow-on Funding from 1Crowd, Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital

Tessol, a Mumbai-based startup in the CleanTech-led cold chain logistics space, has recently raised an undisclosed amount in follow-on equity funding from early stage venture capital firm 1Crowd, and existing investors Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital.

Founded in 2013 by IIT Delhi – Harvard alumnus Rajat Gupta, Tessol (Thermal Energy Service Solutions Private Limited) aims to revolutionize the cold chain distribution in India using its proprietary "Energy Storage" technology based solutions. These products and solutions, while being environmentally sustainable, reduce the lifetime cost of cooling by more than 50% therefore making cold chain on low value products viable. 

Over the last few years, TESSOL has developed solutions ranging from farm level collection to home delivery and works with the largest FMCG, food processing and e-commerce players in India. Funds raised in this round would be utilized by TESSOL for strengthening the current product suite and bringing some disruptive products that were under development to pilot and commercialization.

It may be recalled that, last year in May, the startup was among the 6 winners of the Startup Energy Transition Awards organised by the Deutsche Energie–Agentur, the German Energy Agency (dena) for recognizing innovative business ideas in clean tech and energy transition area from across the world.

"There are huge gaps in the Indian food supply chain and while there are several cold chain products available in the market, there is a dearth of viable solutions. At TESSOL, we believe in partnering with our customers and working out system level solutions that can drastically impact costs while improving the performance,” said Rajat Gupta, CEO of Tessol, who has several years of past industry experience.

“We see Tessol occupy a sweet spot at the intersection of India’s underserved cold chain architecture and a vacuum in environmentally-friendly clean energy solutions. Tessol’s farm-to-fork product range serves myriad use cases, application segments and customer profiles, and the breadth and depth of their client roster bears ample testimony to the efficacy of their innovation-driven offerings,” said Anil Gudibande, co-founder of 1Crowd.

“Tessol is one of the very few innovation-driven cold chain product companies. With their superior energy-efficient technology, already adopted by many marquee clients across industries, the company is well-positioned to service the growing demand for cold chain infrastructure,” said Amber Maheshwari, Vice PresidentatInfuse Ventures.

“We are excited about the rapid growth in TESSOL’s range of cost efficient, high performance cold-chain solutions, which is bringing in new, quality-conscious customers across end-user segments. We believe TESSOL’s technology can, over the longer-term, aid significant reduction in losses in the agri/food chain from the current high levels,” said Krishnan Neelakantan, Senior Directorat Ankur Capital.

In April, 1Crowd led $650K investment of an another logistics segment startup, Mojro, a Bengaluru-based smart urban logistics platform, which offers a machine learning driven intra-city logistic planning and optimization.

Earlier this month, 1Crowd, along with government’s BIRAC, has invested undisclosed amount in Pune-based healthcare startup SynThera Biomedical Private Limited, which focuses on R&D, manufacture and commercialization of affordable biomaterials-based medical devices.

[Top Image Via - dena.de]

Mumbai-based Cleantech Startup TESSOL Wins World Recognition with Startup Energy Transition Award

Mumbai-based Thermal Energy Service Solutions Private Limited (TESSOL) was announced one among the 6 winners of the Startup Energy Transition Awards recently. This award ceremony was organised by the Deutsche Energie–Agentur, the German Energy Agency (dena) for recognizing innovative business ideas in clean tech and energy transition area from across the world. All the selected startups received awards at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue award ceremony recently.

A leader in the field of clean technology, TESSOL bagged the award for its PLUGnCHILL system for refrigerated transport of perishables. It is a patented thermal energy storage technology provides an end to end solution for a sustainable Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Cold Chain.

To recall, IndianWeb2 too had selected TESSOL among 10 promising clean-tech startups in India.

Advantage of Technology

The international jury members chose TESSOL for this award because its PLUGnCHILL cooling systems can have high impact in increasing the efficiency of food supply worldwide. They ensure 100 % product safety, turbo charging, eco- friendly and lower operating cost and lots more.  TESSOL, according to the jury, was able to clearly demonstrate the benefits of their technology in reducing carbon emissions and fossil fuel consumption. Founder & CEO of Tessol Rajat Gupta and Product Manager Raj Dhami received the award. Tessol and five other start-ups from France, Germany, Bangladesh and Nigeria were selected from more than 500 entries from 66 countries.

TESSOL claims that its technology is cost-effective as it reduce 60% to 65% in the operating cost of refrigerated vehicles. The company is developing thermal energy storage solutions for village level pack houses, household air conditioning and hybrid system for buses.

Patented Technology

According to Founder, Rajat Gupta, an alumnus of IIT, Delhi, and Harvard University, “The refrigeration is based on a heat exchanger using an advanced phase change material (PCM) and is independent of the vehicle’s engine. It is charged from the grid and can be tuned to maintain the temperature from -25 to +15 degree celsius”. This is company’s patented technology that permits cold chain vehicles to obviate the use of diesel fuel for refrigeration.

TESSOL was founded in 2013 with an aim to provide cost-effective, energy-efficient and fuel saving storage and logistics refrigeration systems. The company is recognized as a leading player with specialties in Cold Chain Solutions, Cold Storage, Thermal Energy Storage, Renewable Energy, Industrial Process Cooling and Transport Refrigeration etc.

Top Image - Tessol Founder CEO Rajat Gupta and product manager Raj Dhami | Via - The Hindu