Cold Chain Startup Inficold Raises USD 900,000 from RVCF and Other Investors
Inficold, a Noida – based startup supported by Shell Foundation, an independent UK registered charity, that provides cold storage solutions has raised $900,000 (Rs. 6.5 crore approximately) in a funding round from RVCF and other undisclosed high net worth individuals as a part of their Pre Series A fund closure. The funds raised will be utilized to expand the overall manufacturing, sales and servicing capabilities by the company.
Founded in 2015, Inficold has developed a retro-fittable thermal energy storage technology for storing cooling in a low-cost medium such as water to ice. The technology is designed to use solar electric energy to make ice, and later use it for cooling purposes. Inficold’s products enable the application of thermal storage for virtually any cooling needs, be it milk, cold storage, air conditioning and vaccine refrigeration, without making any major modifications to existing cooling hardware. The current product portfolio consists of modular cold storage, instant milk coolers and bulk milk coolers. It provides round the clock cooling with just 7 hours of grid/solar power. The modular cold storage units store 5-100 MT of farm produce in 4-16 C temperature range, whereas milk coolers cool 200-10,000 L of milk on a daily basis. The company future vision is to permeate in dairy, horticulture, poultry, meat, cold logistics and air conditioning segments across India. The primary challenges addressed by Inficold are grid dependency, diesel and unreliable electric batteries which make cold chain cost prohibitive for developing countries. Shell Foundation has supported the company for last 4 years in various product development activities.
The company has installations in more than 17 states of India with a strong presence in North Eastern states including Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura. Inficold is aggressively ramping up its production capacity by over 10 times. The increased capacity will allow the company to cater to the demand with minimized lead time for the customer. Inficold’s in house R&D centre is also developing other sustainable cooling solutions in air conditioning space. The company is partnering with multiple channel partners to strengthen the local presence in sales, marketing, and installation. The company has also started leveraging international market and has few installations in African subcontinent. The company expects sales of over 1000 units in the next 2 years with a focus towards providing sustainable cooling solutions for farm level cooling in agriculture segment.
Sharing his thoughts on the latest funding raised by Inficold from RVCF and other investors, Dr. Nitin Goel, Co-founder and CEO, Inficold said, ”We are delighted to receive funding from RVCF and other investors. We had started Inficold with the mission to utilise the immense potential of cold chain solutions to increase the output of Indian agriculture. Over the last year, the accelerated growth that we have seen is clear evidence of the viability of our business model. RVCF also believes in the potential of cold chain solutions to transform Indian agriculture. We are thankful for their support.”
On supporting Inficold, Gaurav Chowdhry, Vice President at RVCF, said, “Inficold is focusing on energy-efficient cold chain solutions across India and other markets and has developed innovative products catering to persistent problem of food wastage and distressed sales. We are excited to collaborate with Nitin and Himanshu in their journey.”
