When her maternal grandfather passed away, Divya Shetty was a young girl in Class II. His death was not a natural death. He was already into a lot of debt when he was diagnosed with throat cancer, a farmer hailing from Udupi district in Karnataka. He hanged himself in their farmhouse so his family wouldn't suffer. She was young at that time and her family discouraged her from farming after she faced the dark side of it. But does that really keep her heart away from farmers?
No! The suicides of farmers in 2015 moved a farmer's granddaughter. This led to the birth of Indian Superhero - from the Indian soil & for the Indian soil. She quit her high-paying job as a software engineer at an MNC to follow her passion of helping farmers. Mr. Vishnu Vardhaan's support made this possible. These two youngsters met at an event in Bengaluru that was held to discuss farmer issues, as fate would have it. In 2019, they set up three successful start-ups together and also got married.
Cutting out the middlemen, they started with helping organic farmers sell their produce to the customer directly. This was not easy as they could not have met the farmers from different regions on their own. Their willingness to solve their problems led them to think of a solution for every problem coming their way. With support from NGOs, they helped over 800 farmers.
The main problem that they realized while working with these farmers is paper waste and water scarcity."Pepaa" (earlier known as Plantcil), a start-up from 2018, came from this idea of recycling the waste paper. One of the farmers shared the idea of embedding seeds in the pencil. Cercle X is an expert at giving life to ideas. The waste is now recycled into various stationery products and gift items by "Pepaa".
Cercle X has now ventured into recycling of plastic, metals etc. after gaining success and knowledge from these ventures. The current mission of this organization is to empower 10000 rag pickers and kabadiwallahs. Many factories in South India are currently being helped by recycling pre-consumer and post-consumer waste after consumers use the products.
The company has developed a cloud-based waste management platform, enabling brands to achieve zero waste through their ScrapMarket App. 10000 metric tonnes of waste are processed every month. BlockChain technology enables companies to track waste and provides digital data that was not possible earlier. Companies can now see how the waste they produce is treated.
Cercle X is currently seeking investment through a pre-series A round. They have grown by 914% from last year. Divya has begun an organic and sustainable movement and she hopes more people will join in the future.
As Divya says, “My goal for the next three years is to expand my company, find markets all over India and abroad, and empower at least 2,000 farmers and their families and 5,000 women to earn a dignified income every month. On the other side, I want to enable at least a thousand brands and a million consumers to transition to an organic, sustainable lifestyle”
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