MIT student startup co-founded by Koz native wins $502,000

Kozhikode: A Kozhikode native’s student startup at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which aims to reduce pesticide usage using their patented spray and formulation technology has bagged the second prize in the Rice Business Plan Competition — the world’s richest and largest graduate-level student startup competition conducted by Texas- based Rice University.The startup bagged a prize money of $100,000.
Sreedath Panat, a fourth year PhD student in mechanical engineering at MIT, is one of the co-founders of the student startup AgZen, along with fellow student Vishnu Jayaprakash, Maher Damak (co-inventor) and Kripa Varanasi (co-inventor and chairman), who is professor in mechanical engineering at MIT.
Apart from the second prize, AgZen has also won a $300,000 Owl Investment Prize and other investment prizes bringing the grand total to $502,000. According to Panat, AgZen’s mission is to eliminate pesticide pollution and help farmers around the world save $20 billion per year.
“Only two percent of sprayed pesticide reaches its target due to the inherent water repellency of plant surfaces. This inefficiency forces over-spraying of up to 50 times by farmers and results in the pollution of soil, water sources and the atmosphere. Pesticides have a market size of $60 billion globally and $5 billion in the US and contribute up to 30% of production cost for certain major crops,” he said.
“AgZen, a pesticide alternative spray and formulation technology startup, has developed patented technology that uses proprietary food-safe additives which, when mixed with agrochemicals and sprayed through our proprietary sprayers greatly enhances retention of droplets to plant surfaces,” he said.
“We have completely de-risked our product with over two years of field trials in the largest farms in the world and demonstrated that our spray and formulation technology can reduce pesticide usage by 50% on average,” Panat said.
This year’s Rice Business Plan Competition had 440 teams from across the world of which 54 student-founded startups were shortlisted.
Panat’s research focuses on sustainability in solar energy and agriculture. He graduated from IIT Madras in 2017.
Panat is the son of Padmanabhan Namboodiri, retired regional editor, Kerala Kaumudi, and Lalitha, who works with Kerala Gramin Bank.