Specialty Chemical Start-Up Tulon Materials Raises ₹10 Cr in Seed Round

Tulon Materials Private Limited, a deeptech specialty chemicals company, has raised ₹10 crore in a seed funding round led by investor Karthik Sundar Iyer, with the investment earmarked to facilitate engineering and commercialisation.

The company is set to use the capital across applications in paints and coatings, printing inks, and adhesives.

The round also saw participation from Karan Goshar and Prakhar Pandey, partners at defence and deep-tech venture fund Valour Capital, who joined in their personal capacities, alongside angel investor Agam Shah.

Founded in 2022 and recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Tulon is led by co-founders Asesh Sarkar, Dr. Rabindranath Mandal, and Harsh Bhatt, who collectively bring eight decades of experience in the chemical industry. Bhatt serves as chief executive.

At the centre of Tulon's portfolio is a proprietary plastic waste upcycling technology that converts complex polymer waste streams into high-quality chemical resins.

The company deploys it as a direct response to industrial demand for sustainable feedstocks and as a commercially feasible path toward circular material outcomes in targeted sectors.

Its operating model is a "revenue-first, deep-tech" strategy, a deliberate bet on building intellectual property that is immediately commercialisable rather than waiting on long development limits. AI is integrated across chemical simulation, validation, and automated R&D workflows, which the company says compresses development cycles well beyond what conventional experimental approaches allow.

An open innovation platform enables collaboration with industry partners, research institutions, and global customers for rapid application validation.

"Tulon was founded to bridge the historical gap between deep scientific research and commercial agility," said Bhatt.

"We engineer practical, scalable material platforms that improve industrial unit economics while advancing sustainability. This funding allows us to grow our IP portfolio, advance our upcycling technologies, and accelerate our validation timelines with enterprise partners globally."

Indian Products in the European Market

Tulon is positioning its indigenous, “Made in India” products for the European Union (EU), a market with some of the world's most hard-liner materials regulations and growing demand for low-carbon industrial inputs. The company said multiple products are currently under technical validation by large multinational enterprises, though they did not mention names.

For lead investor Karthik Sundar Iyer, the appeal lies in the combination of domain depth and digital execution. "By establishing a highly technical platform that targets immediate, massive industrial end-markets, the team is building the foundational framework for a highly resilient and globally relevant specialty chemicals business," he said.

Tulon's DPIIT recognition places it within India's formal start-up ecosystem, opening access to government procurement linkages and research partnerships as it works toward its first commercial deployments.