Tripura University campus startup gets seed funding from TATA

Tripura University has achieved a major milestone with its first on-campus startup, HN Technovations LLP, being selected for seed support by Tata Sons at the prestigious Tata Social Enterprise Challenge 2025, hosted by IIM Calcutta. The recognition comes as a proud moment for the state and the university, as the startup stood out among 16,000 applications submitted from across India.

HN Technovations, incubated at the Tripura University Business Incubator and registered under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs as a Limited Liability Partnership, was founded under the guidance of Professor Harjeet Nath from the Department of Chemical and Polymer Engineering. The initiative is supported by AICTE’s YUKTI 2.0 scheme, which funds innovative ideas with strong market potential.

Highlighting the startup’s focus, Professor Nath said that their work revolves around water purification, clean energy generation and soil amendments. Among their innovations, a portable water purifier designed for emergency situations such as floods and natural disasters has gained special attention. According to him, the device offers a cost-effective alternative to packaged drinking water, with each litre costing less than one rupee.

“We want to make the product particularly useful for the North East. Agencies like NDRF, SDRF and even the Army can deploy it in the field to purify locally available water. This could reduce reliance on plastic water bottles, which cause significant environmental damage after relief operations,” Nath explained.

The purifier was recently showcased at the Global Conference on Disaster Management in Dehradun, where senior defence officials lauded the technology. With Tata Sons’ support, the startup now looks forward to optimising its innovations for widespread use, marking the beginning of Tripura University’s journey into the entrepreneurial ecosystem with solutions aimed at both social impact and sustainability.