KARNATAKA, BENGALURU, 27/3/25- C-CAMP  | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

In one of its first forays in the energy sector, India’s premier bio innovation organisation, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) has signed a MoU with MC2 Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation backed by India’s energy majors, dedicated to catalysing deep-tech innovation in India’s energy and industrial sectors.

The partners together launched the first edition of MC²+ Grand Butanol Challenge on 17 July at C-CAMP premises in the presence of Taslimarif Saiyed, C-CAMP Director-CEO and Sandeep Maheshwari, Director and CEO, MC2 Foundation.

The challenge is conceptualised as a national milestone-funded innovation programme (through both equity-free prize and grant mechanisms) aimed at sourcing and harvesting indigenous solutions for bio-Iso-Butanol/N-Butanol production.

Spearheaded by MC2+ as convener and primary organiser, C-CAMP is coming on board the effort as the exclusive implementation and mentorship partner. C-CAMP’s role will be instrumental in attracting high-quality solutions from across India’s biotech, synthetic biology and deep-tech innovation ecosystem including harnessing its deep network of over 4000 startups in India’s biotech ecosystem.

“C-CAMP is excited to be inking this pact with MC2 Foundation as our first attempt at positioning India’s thriving biotechnology innovation landscape as the landing point for indigenous energy innovation. India consumes around 5.6 million barrels of oil per day, making it the third-largest oil consumer in the world and we rely on imports for about 90% of this need. This also makes us one of the world’s largest contributors to global warming. To build our self-reliance in this sector and reduce our carbon footprint, it is imperative that we consider potential fossil fuel alternatives such as butanol. C-CAMP has an established portfolio of cutting-edge biotech innovations across synthetic biology, nanotech, graphene tech and other deep tech domains making it a solid launchpad for India’s oil and energy majors to venture into biotech. We look forward excitedly to the partnership and the churn that we are expecting to create with the Challenge,” Saiyed said The total funding offered consists of a prize pool of up to ₹5 cr [around 5.2K USD] and grant pool of up to ₹7.5 cr [around 7.8K USD] apart from ecosystem support and commercialisation and deployment pathways in collaboration with MC2+’s PSU partners.

The problem statements are - Fermentation-based production of n-Butanol and Iso-Butanol, - Catalytic production of n-Butanol and Iso-Butanol, and Innovative production pathways for n-Butanol and/or Iso-butanol.

The challenge addresses critical gaps at TRL 4–7, including microbial production from non-food feedstocks, low-energy separation, bio-derived cetane improvers, and field-deployable quality-control hardware. The application deadline for the challenge is August 15, 2026.

Published on July 21, 2026