Indian space tech firm wins startup mentorship in Canada
Bangalore-based space tech firm Nopo has become the first Indian startup to be selected for Creative Destructive Lab’s globally renowned mentorship programme.
Nopo is among the first cohort of the space stream launched by Toronto-headquartered CDL this fall.
“For me, participation in this stream is very important because of the connections I’ll get to make in the aerospace community.” said Nopo CEO Gadhadar Reddy.
Nopo, which has worked with Indian Space Research Organisation, manufactures space-grade carbon nanotubes. While the research behind its product is at an advanced stage, Reddy is hopeful that being part of the CDL programme will have another benefit. “It’s the right fit for us. We don’t have the business side figured out and when we spoke to CDL, they told us, ‘That’s exactly what we provide’.”
Reddy said that other than being a lighter and stronger replacement for carbon fibre used in the space industry, “multiple other applications” have emerged for the nanotubes with each scale-up, including coating material for absorbing light or even as a water filtration system.
CDL’s programme was founded in 2015 by Indo-Canadian Ajay Agrwal, professor of entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. Agrawal, also CDL’s academic director, said while they had focused on artificial intelligence startups earlier, they decided “this year, we now had to move to the next step.”