AltM, a four-year-old startup, is extracting high-value materials from agri-waste streams that industrial giants like Praj Industries consider unviable for their scale. While Reliance committed ₹65,000 crore to low-value compressed biogas by 2025, AltM is building specialty chemicals for personal care and future battery applications. This approach redefines India's biomass challenge, moving beyond basic energy production to complex, higher-margin chemical manufacturing.
How We Got Here
India annually produces roughly 1,000 million tonnes each of biomass and coal, but biomass's significantly lower calorific value makes large-scale biofuels economically challenging for energy security. This commercial reality meant Reliance's 2025 compressed biogas investment was not a headline number in its FY26 commentary, despite the sheer scale of the bet.
The Numbers
- AltM's process uses rice husk and sugarcane bagasse to yield high-value cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin compounds.
- These biomass-derived compounds directly replace petroleum-derived chemicals in personal-care products.
- AltM plans to expand into novel applications, including materials for batteries.
- Harshad Velankar, who previously led bioprocessing at HPCL and worked at Praj Industries, joined AltM as Head of R&D in mid-2023 to commercialize the technology.
What Happens Next
🇮🇳 Why This Matters for India
For deep-tech founders in Hyderabad and Bangalore, AltM illustrates a viable path to creating high-value products from India's abundant agricultural waste, bypassing the low-margin energy sector.
The Take
This is a talent arbitrage play, not just a materials innovation. Large corporations like HPCL and Reliance will find it increasingly difficult to retain top chemical engineers if startups like AltM offer clear, commercialized pathways for deep science that corporate labs often sideline.
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The Ken ↗