With an integrated bio-refinery business model, Nandan Biomatrix aims to be the largest biodiesel producer in the country The 51-year-old Bhupendra (Bholu) Kansagra is a frequent flier to India, exploring opportunities to expand his geographical investment spread beyond the UK, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Sudan. "Although my first investment in Spicejet back home was an accidental entry, a more strategic investment has been made in the 10-year-old Hyderabad-based Nandan Biomatrix Ltd (nbl), a player in the field of nutraceuticals and biofuels, where I have 8.63 per cent stake," says Bholu. Like Bholu, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, a market-sawy investor, through Rare group, also holds a 16 per cent stake in nbl, while the Dubai-based Istithmar group (World Wide Ventures) has a 16 per cent stake. Currently, the Nandan board is sitting on investment proposals from a slew of US and Europe-based green funds, who according to various reports, have valued the company in excess of Rs500 crore. What has convinced such august investors to put money into nbl? For starters, it is a company promoted by four first-generation entrepreneurs -V. Bhaskar Rao, B. Jaya Kumar, Pha-neesh Mudigonda and C.S.Jadhav, all in their mid-40s. All four studied together and grew up taking regular employment. "But we kept in touch regularly and debated on trying our hand in business. One fine day, we kicked our jobs and decided to take the plunge. Pooling Rs2.5 lakh each from our savings, we got our seed capital of Rsl0 lakh," recalls Rao, the company's md, who with his partners, started by acquiring 50 acres on the outskirts of Hyderabad, cultivating safed musli (chlorophytum borivil-ianum), an aphrodisiac. "We realised that India has to leverage its strengths, like its repository of ayurvedic knowledge, availability of land and inexpensive skilled labour," reasons Jaya Kumar, director (technical) at nbl, who has done his masters in science and worked in the pharma industry before joining Nandan. He has already identified over 200 herbal plants suited to India's agronomic and climatic conditions. Starting with safed musli, nbl moved on to aloe vera products and other medicinal plants. This nutraceuticals division has been supplying to Maneesh Pharmaceuticals, Reem Pharmacy (Oman) and Mega Life Science (Thailand), among others. "Initially (in early 2000), we focussed on developing nutraceuti-cal products. The revenues and profits of the company came from this division, which were ploughed back into the company," explains Mudigonda, director (finance), nbl. Till 2003-04, nbl's income and net profit were a mere Rs5.19 crore and Rsl.3 crore, respectively. The following year, while total income rose to Rs23 crore, net profit was Rs2.43 crore. "The bottomline growth was not in sync with the growth in the turnover, due to increased acreage under cultivation and the related expenditure being charged to the profit and loss account in the year in which the expenditure is incurred," adds Mudigonda. While this impacts profit, it will translate into revenues once the yields are accrued after the cultivation period, when the crop is harvested. "This is a general norm followed by agri-based companies," says Rao. While the herbal medicines market has been growing by leaps and bounds, Bhaskar and his team are betting on nbl's entry into jatropha, its potential as a feedstock to produce biodiesel and how the biofuels division of nbl is expected to be the company's major growth driver in future. "The world is waking up to the reality of dwindling petroleum reserves and the search for alternative solutions is on. In this scenario, biodiesel is increasingly being accepted as the most cost-effective and sensible solution. Recognising the market potential of biofuels, we embarked on a large-scale j atrophia cultivation and biodiesel production, along with value-added products through bio-refineries. And we'll make this Nan-dan's forte," explains Rao. He also points out that nbl is the first company in the world to apply for patents on jatropha for higher yields and has developed the expertise to cultivate ja