Co-founded by way of Prithvi Kini and Jashid Hameed in Bengaluru, Nuvedo — featured on Shark Tank India — gives DIY mushroom kits for simple chemical-free mushroom cultivation at house, in conjunction with different value-based merchandise.
Lately featured on Shark Tank India Season 3, Bengaluru-based startup Nuvedo has earned a focus with its one-of-a-kind Mushroom DIY kits, which permit folks to develop chemical-free mushrooms easily within the convenience in their properties.
Designed for mushroom fans, mushroom customers, or even youngsters, this mushroom rising package permits any individual to reap mushrooms from the field, instantly to their plate.
The straightforward DIY package permits you to domesticate unique mushrooms — together with red oyster mushrooms, Indian high-protein oyster mushrooms, king tuber oyster mushrooms, gray oyster mushrooms, and elm oyster mushrooms — in simply 10 days.
Via making mushroom cultivation simple, the startup’s major purpose is to make stronger folks’s figuring out of fungi and produce the therapeutic advantages of mushrooms to each and every Indian family.
We sat down with the co-founders Prithvi Kini (30) and Jashid Hameed (32) to be informed extra concerning the DIY kits and their obsession with mushrooms that took them to Shark Tank.
The shared fondness for mushrooms
In 2014, after finishing her upper research in philosophy at Delhi’s Woman Shri Ram Faculty For Ladies, Prithvi labored with Bengaluru-based startups specializing in science and era. While Jashid graduated from BITS Pilani after which pursued his grasp’s from IIM Indore in 2017. He labored with Aditya Birla Model and Retail Ltd as space operations supervisor.
A turning level got here of their lives after they met every different on a web based relationship software. As their love tale advanced, they found out their existence objectives within the meals trade.
It was once amid the COVID-19 pandemic that the couple found out the advantages of mushroom-based extracts and began sourcing wellness merchandise from the US.
“Mushrooms necessarily assist in pressure aid, psychological well-being, intestine well being, nervousness, cardiovascular well being, and athletic efficiency. After experiencing their well being advantages, we began on the lookout for choices or Indian manufacturers that had been making mushroom-based dietary supplements. Unfortunately, we couldn’t in finding one of these logo,” Jashid tells The Higher India.
“We needed to construct a logo to bridge this hole. But if we began, we discovered that there weren’t sufficient folks rising it. Then the query got here, how can we domesticate those? We realised that we need to get started from scratch, make our personal spawn to make extracts and sooner or later the wellness merchandise,” he provides.
In 2020, Jashid undertook coaching on the Indian Institute of Horticulture Analysis (IIHR) in Bengaluru to know the nitty-gritty of cultivating mushrooms. After a yr of study and construction, the couple formally introduced their corporate Nuvedo in 2021 by way of laborious their collective financial savings of Rs 30 lakh.
How does the DIY package paintings
When the couple began researching the sector, they discovered a lack of knowledge concerning the cultivation of mushrooms. “Folks have misconceptions surrounding mushrooms as a result of they’re noticed rising in agricultural waste and unhygienic prerequisites,” Prithvi tells The Higher India.
It turned into crucial for them to get a hold of an answer that allowed folks to be trained on mushroom cultivation. Their quest led them to design a DIY mushroom package.
Jashid stocks, “We needed to construct a group of mushroom fans by way of the usage of those rising kits as a result of we felt that at once launching mushroom dietary supplements in a marketplace that doesn’t know anything else about mushrooms would had been exhausting to focus on. So, when folks themselves nurture and eat mushrooms, they’ll perceive its significance.”
The package which is ready arm’s duration, incorporates a cardboard bag containing ragi straw, which has mushroom mycelium rising on it. It serves because the rising medium of the mushroom fungi. In conjunction with this, the package additionally accommodates a small spray bottle.
Explaining how the package works, Prithvi says, “You fill the water bottle with ingesting water and spray the bag 3 times an afternoon. This will likely supply a humid and humid surroundings to turn on the myceliated substrate. In about 10 days, you are going to get your first harvest of natural mushrooms. With this, you’ll be able to harvest a complete of 500 grams of mushroom in two to a few harvests from one package.”
“They’re totally sustainable as they develop on agricultural waste. It doesn’t require daylight and anyone can develop them,” she provides.
Remaining yr, Nithin George purchased their red oyster develop package and says that he is still occupied with it. “Coming from a non-agricultural background, I had no thought concerning the international of mushrooms. After I attended a workshop by way of Nuvedo, I were given to be informed about how mushrooms are advisable to our well being and well-being,” he tells The Higher India.
“This sparked my interest and I attempted rising them at house. And the cultivation procedure was once probably the most stunning sight. My circle of relatives saved observing the ones stunning produce and later plucked them for intake. Their package is only a well-crafted gateway into this huge mystical international of mycophiles,” he provides.
Priced at Rs 699, the couple has bought those kits to a minimum of 20,000 shoppers around the nation and has discovered main call for in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kochi, and Pune.
The Shark Tank enjoy
On 7 February, 2024, the couple made it to the centre level of Shark Tank India Season 3. Even if they didn’t bag a deal, Jashid says, “We weren’t in a position to get a deal as sharks sought after to know the marketplace pattern first. They themselves weren’t in reality conscious about mushrooms as a result of we needed to get started the pitch by way of explaining that mushrooms aren’t vegetation, they’re fungi.”
“However I believe we had been slightly a hit in with the ability to damage some myths round mushrooms and spotlight the therapeutic advantages and houses of our merchandise,” provides Prithvi.
Anyway, our number one target market, Jashid says, had been individuals who have some fascination for mushrooms and are open to rising them of their space for intake.
That stated, the couple believes their lives had been “mushrooming” for the reason that release of the corporate that as of late clocks an annual income of Rs 50 lakh.
“Over those years, we now have visited a number of farmers and puts to know the biodiversity that our nation has to provide. With those mushrooms, we’re therapeutic our personal selves each day. I don’t assume some other company task would have given either one of us the alternatives and the fulfilment that has come thru this house,” smiles Prithvi.
(Edited by way of Pranita Bhat; All footage: Nuvedo)