{"id":813034,"date":"2024-12-18T23:16:01","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T05:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/18\/three-friends-turn-cold-chain-green\/"},"modified":"2024-12-18T23:16:01","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T05:16:01","slug":"three-friends-turn-cold-chain-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/18\/three-friends-turn-cold-chain-green\/","title":{"rendered":"Three friends turn cold chain green"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Three<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Shaivee Malik, Vivek Mahindrakar and Dharmik Bapodara first met at IIT Delhi. \u201cI was doing my B Tech in production and industrial engineering, Vivek and Shaivee were doing B Tech in mechanical and biotechnology engineering respectively,\u201d says Dharmik Bapodara. \u201cI first met them when I joined the formula racing club of our college in my first year. We used to design, develop and test formula style single-seater electric race cars that would go 0-100 in just 3.5 secs!\u201d
\u201cBack then we spent most of our time in the garage. We would even sleep there and directly go to classes in the morning,\u201d says Bapodara. \u201cThe team used to run like a mini startup where students had to manage everything from funds and sponsors to recruitment, manufacturing and testing.\u201d
After graduation, the trio decided to start their own venture. In early 2022, Yotuh Energy was born, its name derived from the Sanskrit word \u2018yotuhu\u2019, which means \u2018act of cleaning\u2019. \u201cWe were working in clean tech \u2013 taking the cold chain from grey to green \u2014 and chose the name Yotuh Energy for our startup,\u201d says Bapodara.
The real idea bulb moment came during market research. \u201cIn the fifth month of our market study phase, we visited a transporter standing outside the cold storage while the AC unit was continuously on and grumbling about fuel cost. That\u2019s when we decided to work on electrifying the refrigeration chain,\u201d says Bapodara. Yutoh makes electric refrigeration units for intra-city mid-mile logistics, the first to enable Tata Ace and EVs into the cold chain with electric refrigeration units; diesel-based AC units do not fit in small commercial vehicles. Yotuh has its own fleet of refrigerated vehicles in Chennai (Tata Ace and Tata Ace EV) and plans to expand it to Bengaluru and Coimbatore.<\/p>\n

Yotuh applied for grants and other equity free funding options for its initial requirements. It\u2019s first was a NIDHI EIR grant (dept of science and technology) from IIM Udaipur Incubation. That money was used to make a prototype and test it with a transporter. \u201cAfter that, we have received multiple grants and awards and won some cash prize challenges,\u201d says Bapodara. That list includes the RAFTAAR grant (PABI) by the ministry of agriculture, a seed grant by Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (incubator), a seed fund from IIT Madras Incubation Cell (incubator), the NEXUS Program startup grant award from US Embassy, the Carbon Zero Challenge 4.0 prize by IIT Madras and the TIDE 2.0 EIR by IIM Visakhapatnam (ministry of electronics and IT).<\/p>\n

The Yotuh team moved to Chennai after spending a year in Delhi. \u201cWe got to know about this opportunity to get incubated by IIT Madras and DICV,\u201d says Bapodara. The team\u2019s first call with Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala (former head of IITM Incubation and Research Park) was a game changer. \u201cHe did not ask much about our idea at first. He asked more about ourselves … After a few rounds of evaluation we got in,\u201d says Bapodara.
Sine July 2023, Yotuh has since been working out of IIT Madras Research Park in Chennai. This Aug, it raised 1.53 crore from Campus Angels Network. It also got Cavinkare founder C K Ranganathan as a major investor and auto industry veteran Vinod Dasari as advisor. \u201cFor our next phase, we are looking at anywhere between $2.5 million and $3 million,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe have orders from our pilot customers and will start delivering by Dec,\u201d he says. Currently Yotuh\u2019s production facility in Ambattur can make around 30 units a month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

TNN
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Shaivee Malik, Vivek Mahindrakar and Dharmik Bapodara first met at IIT Delhi. \u201cI was doing my B Tech in production and industrial engineering, Vivek and Shaivee were doing B Tech in mechanical and biotechnology engineering respectively,\u201d says Dharmik Bapodara. \u201cI first met them when I joined the formula racing club of our college in my<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":813035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1435,1862],"tags":[8646,6791],"class_list":{"0":"post-813034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-friends","8":"category-three","9":"tag-friends","10":"tag-three"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}