Venture Center invests in PadCare Labs under BIRAC LEAP Fund

New Delhi: Pune-based technology startup incubator, Venture Center has invested an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding under BIRAC’s LEAP Fund in menstrual hygiene management startup, PadCare Labs, which has developed the world’s 1st decentralized smokeless sanitary napkin disposal and recycling system.

The investment will be leveraged to grow capabilities in R&D, operations, team expansion, manufacturing while expanding the market footprint and impact.

PadCare Labs is trying to disrupt the niche and untapped market of menstrual hygiene management (MHM). Speaking on the latest round of investment, Ajinkya Dhariya, Founder and CEO, PadCare Labs, says “In 2018, from recycling a single pad to now having a facility with a recycling capacity of about 1500 of pads per day, our mission-oriented team is helping to enhance hygiene standards globally through its state-of-the-art technology-based products. Through our efforts, we aim to provide end-to-end MHM solutions to B2B enterprises using our subscription-based business model. With the current round of funding, we are looking forward to taking PadCare from pilot demonstration to commercialization”

PadCare has also established associations with Toilet Board Coalition, Dassault Systems, Tata Trust, Unlimited India, CIIE, MSINS, Pune International Center and has received product development grants from central and state government schemes like BIRAC- SOCH, NITI Ayog – Atal New India Innovation Challenge.

On why Venture Center was convinced about investing in the company, Dr Premnath, Director, Venture Center, says “Padcare’s proprietary technology for processing sanitary waste leverages multi-disciplinary capabilities in physics, mechanical engineering, electronics, chemistry and biological sciences to come up with solutions aligned to the needs and preferences of business customers.  Venture Center found this integration of different capabilities to solve a very pressing problem of society extremely interesting.

Venture Center has been engaging with Padcare since its inception via mentoring, grant support and now as investors. Shruti Devasthali, Manager- Equity Portfolio, Venture Center, is extremely excited about the enormous potential that Padcare has in building meaningful solutions for society’s sanitary waste management problems — a problem that has now reached worrisome proportions! She says “Padcare is developing and implementing solutions for real world pressing needs that have global relevance. We see considerable potential for impact at scale. The strong corporate interest in Padcare’s products and services has been very heartening”.