时间：2022-10-17 10:47:18
S uresh Goyal， Chairman and Managing Director of StarAgri Warehousing and Collateral Management， has two BlackBerrys that ring incessantly. Between calls， he meets people and chews paan. He credits his initial success to ICICI Bank， which was looking for agricultural loan seekers in Rajasthan in 2004， to meet priority lending norms.
The bank， however， had realised that lending directly to farmers was risky， as they lacked collateral. It appointed service providers such as Goyal to lend money against farmers’produce. By 2006， Goyal and his partners in Jaipur – Amit Mundawala， Amith Agarwal and Amit Khandelwal – were doing significant business with the bank and soon found other banks knocking at their doors， too. StarAgri， which was formed with a capital of `5 lakh， today has a turnover of around `100 crore.
StarAgri takes orders from around 375 food processing companies， including Cargill India and Archer Daniels Midland， and meets them by buying from farmers and mandis （wholesale markets）. Its 15 labs ensure purchases meet client-specifications.
It provides warehousing services， too， for farmers who want to store their produce. Farmer Babu Lal Mali of Bawri village near Jodhpur says StarAgri’s storage has boosted his income. “There’s no pressure to sell immediately after harvesting，” he says.
StarAgri’s 800 warehouses can store 1.2 million tonnes. “The plan is to treble the capacity in three years，”says Agarwal. The company owns five warehouses and leases the rest. Goyal says leased warehouses can offer only limited solutions. “We will have around 15 of our own warehouses soon，” he says.
It may be small， but Molecular Connections， which counts many big global pharmaceutical companies among its clients， can easily trump the best in the business with its innovations. Its profits have been growing at a compound rate of 25 per cent over the past five years. Last year， it bought out a minority stake held by Baring Private Equity Partners. “We gave Baring the best returns in the industry，” says Jignesh Bhate， CEO， Molecular Connections.
In the pharmaceutical industry， “drug target” is a term for any substance in the body – usually a protein – whose behaviour can be modified by an external drug， leading towards a cure. To discover such targets， scientists have to wade through a lot of research. Molecular Connections provides innovative technology which enables scientists to do so systematically and properly structure the information gleaned as well. The company has also started seeking payment based on successful outcome. “We have started giving them （the clients） five drug targets at a much lower fee. But if any of these drug targets gets into the clinic phase， we share the upside，” says Bhate.
Innovations could help continue the company’s growth story in a competitive， but expanding， market.“The informatics market has hit a new point of inflection because of the genomics revolution，” says Anand Anandkumar， Managing Director and Chairman of the India operations of Cellworks， a biopharma therapeutic firm， explaining its potential. “Sequencing the genome means a huge amount of data， which needs specialised processing. There is a new wave that is combining biology， mathematics and IT， like never before.”