Frugal Labs- Harnessing Future Ready IoT Technology To Create Sustainable Impact

Our journey

Started in 2012, Frugal Labs has always been a technology forebearer company. We always work on the latest technology. It started with Embedded Systems and Robotics, but later in 2017 we understood the need for IoT Technology and how it is going to change the Technology implementation in different sectors across the industries. We have always believed our competencies to be learning and developing. Frugal Labs became the first company to develop IoT training modules for students and for Corporates. The learning curve was slowly increasing, and we collaborated with almost all the IITs and NITs and such colleges in India to bring the awareness of IoT Technology both on theory and practical applications. It was a great opportunity for us to develop the IoT course Syllabus for students with collaboration with NASSCOM Skill Development and, we were the IoT company participating in Karnataka Govt’s YuvaYuga Program for training more than 10,000 students across India. That’s how our journey from Robotics to IoT took place. By then, we have had substantial presence in the market as one of the leading IoT knowledge companies. Not only in colleges, but also we have trained corporate people in many companies, Hindustan UniLever, Plintron, etc. to name a few. It was then that we got regular requests from the students of colleges and Corporates for DIY kits so that they could engage on developing individual applications using IoT.

By 2018, we started making that possible by getting to hardware. It was then we started developing Sensor Enabled Hardware devices on IoT (preciously for Agriculture, Home Environment, Retail and Health). We started working on D2C also by putting these DIY kits for sales and setting up labs for colleges and companies across India.

Learning and exploring has always been a part of our journey and as a team we love doing that. Based on our DIY kits, the idea came for starting to work on full stack solutions based on IoT and related technology. As Hardware has always been our strong point, it was devices and products that we wanted to work for. During the same year, the Company also got engaged on developing some products for KFC and some of the International clients in Dubai. Frugal Labs was incubated under NASSCOM CoE-IoT, and we are still a member of the same.

Sreowshi, our Co-Founder, comes from a Social Science background, and in addition to being an Entrepreneur, she also has her own NGO. She works in financial inclusion, health and education of women SHGs, farmer communities, etc. Thus, it was evident to work in Agriculture Sector when the company wanted to focus on product-oriented application development in a particular sector. And that’s how our journey in Agritech products started by end of 2018. In all these years, it has been many ups and downs and many learnings and what we have achieved in the process is a clear understanding of how a hardware / product company should work. With our team’s continuous efforts and learning, we have been successful in developing processes starting from Procurement, design, manufacturing, and delivery. We want to contribute to that ecosystem of Hardware companies and Atmanirbhar Bharat that the new India envisages. Right now, we have our products for Agriculture, and Allied sectors like Aquaculture, Poultry, etc. and these are all scalable solutions. We work on horizontal offerings and always try to collaborate with businesses/ individuals looking for IoT sensor devices in these applications. We, as a team always can take pride in understanding IoT Technology through all its parameters.

In 2021, we got selected for the Acumen Climate Resilience Cohort and it is there we learnt a lot of things about the Agri ecosystem and how much we as a country need such more and more hardware companies. We also got support and mentorship which helped us to think and plan our approaches in different way.

With over more than 2500 devices delivered so far and strong manufacturing and Supply Chain build up, and achieving to make all our devices mostly in India (Make in India), we now look for working on reducing the cost of the technology and making it more and more affordable for the small and medium scale farmers across domains like farming, poultry, pisciculture, diary etc. This year, we are looking for more and more B2G & B2B collaborations to try and implement our products in different applications across the domains of Agriculture and be a part in creating the Agriculture ecosystem sustainable through technology.

Anecdote

As we are a product/device Company our success stories revolve around products.

Many achievements have happened in the product size, shape, and utilization in these years since we started. One of the key achievement was when we could reduce the usage of energy in the form of battery to 25% which further added to the energy savings. Also, all our products use solar energy as well. The size of the panel has also reduced over the years to half which further allows low intake of materials. The size of the product has also helped the user install the devices quickly and take the benefit out of it. We have partially achieved and in the process of making our devices/products more climate resilient day by day.

When talking to the farmers to come to know of various results like.

a) The quality of the crop increases substantially.

b) Water used in Agriculture is reduced by more than 50% using our devices.

c) Also, through our Water Quality Monitoring product, used for pisciculture applications, we have seen the stress level of the fishes decreased and the death rate also decreases due to continuous monitoring of pH level.

Engagement with the ecosystem

Being a technology product company, we can collaborate with every stakeholder in different stages of the whole Agri ecosystem for the respective Value Chains. We come in to the picture when any stake holder wants to monitor (specially remotely monitor) any of the parameters through sensors which are required for his business. We can also help the business or the Partner in visualizing real time data through our device sensors and take active actions based on the advisories.

Founding Team

Anirban Chowdhury, Co-Founder

Holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering, have worked in a start-up environment for more than 13 years. His passion to solve problems and finding innovative solutions pushes Frugal Labs to excel in solving complex problems. He graduated from SRM University and started his first Company under the incubation facility of the University itself. The Company was in to Robotics and Embedded Systems, he did worked extensively on the mechanical design and the hardware which helped him to pave the way for developing the products in Frugal Labs. His vision has always been to focus on the future Technologies and drive the Team accordingly. He is serving as a Advisory Board Member at NewGen IEDC, SRM University.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/anir_2008

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/anirban2009/

Sreowshi Sinha, Co-Founder

Coming from Social Sciences, her passion to work in the social sector has been a driving force behind Frugal Lab's range of products in Agriculture. With Frugal Labs, she works on creating different strategies for taking the Product to the Market and also making it sustainable for the usage. She holds a Major degree in Geography from University Of Calcutta, and have represented India in the Asia Berlin Summit on IoT in 2017 and also for re:Publica 2017 for a dialogue on “India Of Things”. She works closely on Women issues like Financial Inclusion, both Mental and Physical health and also Livelihood. She actively works such Women groups and Organizations around.

Twitter : https://twitter.com/sreowshisinha1

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreowshisinha/